The Bourne Progeniture, Book 2: Kalipatnam
by texamich
Summary: A continuation of Mykonos to Goa. Go read that one first! David Webb, post-Bourne Ultimatum, the movie; OC; informed some by the Ludlum novels; some AU. David had made up his mind: his next mission would be to go back for his child.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: _This is a continuation of my story Mykonos to Goa. _

_I didn't invent and don't own these characters or storylines. All was written for hobby purposes._

_I didn't write these to fill in blanks credibly or because I thought I could improve upon the exceptional story creation skills of the filmmakers or of Robert Ludlum, who is also an influence. This is an effort out of my own particular passion for, and interest in, Jason Bourne/David Webb, and his struggle to become whole. In addition, I want to solve problems, and resolve plotlines that I opened up in my prequel. And I even add new characters and conflicts along the way; I think I may be into Alternate Universe here… Anyway, I hope you find something to enjoy about it. I welcome your respectful reviews.  
_

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He was no longer Jason Bourne. He was David Webb, and he was one messed up unit. Holed up in a basement apartment in Brooklyn, tending his own wounds, he pondered how to become himself. He had read his file; he had the basic information. Knowing what to do with it all, that was a different story.

He was glad he had a good supply of pharma; the bullet crease along his ribs was superficial, but bathing in the East River with an open wound is never a good idea. It was giving him more trouble than the two in his back ever had. Saltwater was much better therapy than the effluent running alongside Manhattan. The shoulder wound was a constant irritation. Surgery was probably indicated at the time of trauma. The rest was mostly soft-tissue damage. He had felt like hell first thing in the morning ever since Moscow; his escape from SRD just iced the cake. The river felt as hard as rock upon impact two days before, and it beat him up just as effectively. He needed a double dose of Vicodan just to jumpstart his day. The pills soothed his achy left shoulder, the knee, his bruises. They had never worked on the headache—he had tried everything over the years—but that hadn't visited him since his off-season swim in the East River.

The pills would kick in, smoothing the way to his shower and oral hygiene routine. Next was coffee; sometimes at home, sometimes out. If out, newspapers, always. It had been wall-to-wall Landy, Vosen, Kramer, but beyond the initial report, David Webb, AKA Jason Bourne, was not mentioned. Interesting. Vosen and Kramer were going down. Landy seemed to be faring well, her whistle-blower status ensuring her continued safety and job security. The Company had released a statement that David Webb was not considered a security threat. Nice try, he thought. There was no way he was going in, even if he didn't have pressing business in India. At least the photo they had released was a good ten years old.

Three weeks before his dive off the roof of SRD, still ensconced in his Vienna flop, his knee almost healed and his shoulder reasonably so, he had made up his mind: his next mission would be to go back for Drächen. She was the one person to whom he could still make a difference. He wanted to know who he was first, though, wanted to give her a father who was a whole person. To start out with, he just had to lie low a little longer, give his body time to recuperate. The shoulder wound and leg injuries made him too vulnerable to keep her safe.

He used the time to research. The Patriot Act, rendition, ECHELON signals intelligence; things had changed a lot since he dropped out with Marie. He had read articles in the foreign press alluding to it all, but now that he had time to really dig, what he found out changed the game considerably. He had always had access to similar tools—or his handlers had—but it could take weeks, sometimes months, to put them in place. Now, state-of-the-art surveillance on individuals would swing into action without a court order. He had to assume that these tools were in place against him at all times.

Christmas disrupted his asynchronous routine; everything was closed. He looked forward to the 26th, when he could eat out again and get his papers without exact change. He was up extra early that day, decided on coffee out. On a lark, he put on his running shoes and tried a slow three miles through the snowy Viennese streets, to see how it felt. Conclusion: not good. At the coffee shop, he ordered a cup, telling the cashier to add the papers to his total. Heading for a table, he glanced at the headlines: TSUNAMI KATASTROPHE. He dropped down into the first chair in front of him, consuming the papers whole, coffee cooling and forgotten on the table.

For the first time since Basic Training, he proceeded without a fully developed plan; no contingencies in place. His objective was simply to tie up what loose ends he could and then reach his daughter as soon as possible. It would take him about two weeks to amass everything he needed, he figured. Twelve days later, he was in Paris, breaking into Marie's brother's apartment.

He wished that Martin hadn't asked, "How did she die"? Regretted Martin knowing the horror of Marie's final moments, all implied in his answer, "She was shot". At least Martin didn't have to live with the image of Marie's bewildered face as the bullet tore into her neck, its force driving her body forward out of the driver's seat until the belt tensioner caught and reeled her back in. Her dark eyes, spark already fading, acknowledging in a split second how right he had been, her beautiful mouth open, tremulous, in an attitude of terror.

He didn't talk about his efforts to save her, didn't share his own grief with Martin, sensing it would only activate the other man's contempt. He left as quickly as he could. Hoped he would be back sometime to introduce the devastated young man to his niece.

London, Madrid, Tangier, New York. A return to the madness of his former life. A return to having the weight of another's safety on his shoulders, and to killing in order to guarantee that safety. With Simon Ross, he failed. With Nicky, he did not. He delivered Nicky with her life and that was all that he could do. The past was the past, and he still couldn't remember her prior to his final night in Paris. All he saw in his future was Drächen.

So it was that, two days after he crawled out of the East River, David Webb boarded a flight, JFK to Hyderabad. The picture from Jason Bourne's passport had been plastered, however briefly, on every media outlet in New York, probably on the planet. Aside from his regular precautions, though, he didn't do anything special. Traveling on a newly minted Canadian passport, freelance journalist credentials tucked inside, on a standing-room-only flight jammed with aid workers and reporters, no one gave him a second glance.

The twenty-six hour flight to India was a piece of cake compared to the two and a half days it took him to get to Kalipatnam. Ignoring the screaming protest of every muscle in his body, consuming a dose of Vicoprofen every six hours, he rode a motorbike as far as he could go on the muddy road, then went by foot the rest of the way. As he approached the coast, the countryside was unrecognizable. David was grateful. His memories of India were suffused with Marie; familiar landscapes would have made it impossible to avoid thinking about how much she wanted to be back on this road with him, anticipating a reunion with their child.

When he arrived at Kalipatnam, he went straight to the highest ground to look around. There were no sightlines, however, as a tent village had sprung up there to house people displaced by the tsunami. Making some inquiries, he learned that the orphanage had been hard hit; whole walls swept away. The children all ran away, no, some had been lost... No two sources told the same story.


	2. Chapter 2

David went tent to tent. Methodical, relentless; he would not stop until he checked from one end of the camp to another. At the far end from where he had started, he knocked on the frame of the 100th? 1000th? tent he had seen that day, opened the flap slightly, and glimpsed a pale-skinned child inside. He looked closer. Lying in a cot, eyes closed, her once-chubby cheeks gaunt, her skin beyond pale, was Drächen. He stepped in, saw she was alone, and went straight to her side. Feeling for a pulse, he was only alarmed by what he found. She was clammy and did not stir to his touch. He was just kneeling down to check her pupil responsiveness when he heard the unmistakable sound of a round dropping into the chamber of a semi-automatic handgun behind him.

Coming toward him, M11 in her hand and pointed at him, was a young woman, the look on her face all business. He was on his feet between the assailant and Drächen in a heartbeat, his Glock out and trained on her, his unwavering gaze delivering the message, _I will kill you_. They froze, disbelief on both faces. He had seen her before, in Pamela Landy's war room in Berlin the day he went to the rooftop and dialed his cell phone, the crosshair in his scope kissing Landy's left temple. This woman had been wearing a purple shirt that day. He had noticed her coloring: pale skin, hair and eyes dark like Marie's. Through the scope, he had seen her signal to Landy to keep him in play while she ran a trace on the call. As if he didn't know better than to hang up at 45 seconds. The look on her face now told him that she knew exactly who he was.

"Your daughter is very seriously ill," she said to him, her voice a bit hoarse, maybe from fear, adrenalin. She inclined her head towards the child, eyes riveted to his eyes. They weren't really like Marie's at all, he now saw. These eyes were hazel. Marie's were pure, dark brown; chocolate drops.

"She has dysentery," the girl went on. "I'm here with _Médecins Sans Fronti__è__res_…" Assessing him, making a decision. "I'm going to treat her now." She slowly raised her gun toward the tent ceiling and unchambered her round, eyes still on his. She put the firearm on the ground, tossed him her _MSF_ ID badge, and waited, expectantly, for him to step aside.

David glanced at the badge, unmoving. The name read Kimberly Ramsey. _MSF_ had the reputation of being absolutely apolitical; impervious to intelligence placements. If she had said Red Cross, that would be a different story. He moved slowly aside, leaving his round in the chamber, but clicking on the safety before lowering his weapon.

She knew he had killed at least one woman before, Violetta Neski. He had menaced Nicky Parsons, her colleague in Berlin, at gunpoint; Nicky had said that she thought he was going to pull the trigger. But Kim ignored him as she opened her bag and got out a bottle of water and a plastic syringe. He hadn't killed Conklin, the very embodiment of Treadstone, when he'd had the chance. Or Nicky, after all—and she had been up to her ears in the op. He hadn't killed Abbott, and Abbott had as good as killed his child's mother. In the tape Bourne sent Landy, he had renounced violence, in her name. Witnesses said he hadn't even fired a round into the man who had actually killed Marie, though Gretkhov's assassin had died anyway, bleeding to death from internal trauma due to the car crash.

Anyway, she was here to help the child; he wouldn't hurt her. Sure of that, she slipped into her professional demeanor, what she hoped was a soothing bedside manner. She looked into his steel-gray eyes once again. "Do you want to hold her?" she asked. She had no idea how long it had been since he had seen his daughter; he must want desperately to cradle her in his arms.

"Yes," not moving, his sidearm still drawn. It was just too much of a coincidence, finding someone from Landy's team here with Drächen. He had reason to trust Landy, after the help she had given him, after she followed through with blowing the whistle on Treadstone and Blackbriar. But who knew what Landy might agree to now that she was fighting for her career? And who knew where this person's loyalties lay? She might be one of Vosen's lackeys, out for revenge. And how did she know he was Drächen's father?

Kim shrugged, _Suit yourself._ She opened the syringe package.

"Who are you?" he asked, as she knelt down next to Drächen.

"As you saw, my name is Kim Ramsey. You saw me working with Landy in Berlin?" She emptied a packet of powder into the water bottle and shook vigorously, then filled the needleless syringe from the water bottle. Kim gently took the limp child out of the cot and into her lap, holding her upright to receive the fluids. The little girl didn't stir, and David's attention went to his baby's face, his face registering alarm.

"Can she take that? She's unconscious."

Kim's face reflected serious concern, as well. "We'll just have to see," she said. "Sometimes someone can swallow a little, even if they're unconscious. It's all I've got until the full _MSF_ detail arrives tomorrow, and she can't wait." Slipping the syringe into the baby's mouth, stroking Drächen's thin cheek with the thumb of the hand holding her head up, Kim prepared to depress the plunger on the syringe.

David spoke quickly. "I have hypodermics. IV lines, catheters, fluids, pharma, too."

Kim looked up, face annoyed. "Well, speak up, asshole! This baby's only dying!" At once remorseful—_That's the child's father, Kimberly!_ her mother's voice whispered in her ear, she pressed her lips together momentarily. A high, red flush filled her cheeks. "Show me."

Drächen suddenly cried out, writhing in Kim's arms. A foul odor filled the tent as the main symptom of her illness—diarrhea—presented with a vengeance.

"Poor baby," said Kim soothingly. "Your poor tummy." She calmly and expertly stood up with the child still in her arms, pulled some plastic gloves and other supplies out of her bag, and placed the feverish child on a disposable changing pad. She carefully cleaned the baby, dressing her in a fresh disposable diaper and a t-shirt from a three-pack that she tore open.

"Here, tie this up, will you?" She tossed a plastic bag containing the soiled clothing and gloves at his feet and started sanitizing her hands.

He looked at the bag. She had been willing to shoot him to defend Drächen. And he was sick to the point of disgust of holding women at gunpoint. He put his weapon away in his waistband and picked up the bag. "She was using the toilet back in April," he said, carefully tying up the bag. Kim glanced up at him, intrigued: parental defensiveness in Jason Bourne? She tossed him a larger plastic bag for a trash receptacle and the hand sanitizer. He used both.

"Have you ever had dysentery?" Kim asked briskly, taking the little girl up in her arms again. He blinked, gave a nod; he knew he had. "I bet you forgot your toilet training, too. She'll get it back again, when she gets better. You going to show me what you've got?"

He opened his pack and took out the supplies they needed. She looked everything over with approval. "You brought neonatal needles. Good; her veins are small." She made to hand him the child so that she could get to work, but he shook his head.

"I'll do it," he said.

Kim hesitated for just a second, then sat on the cot and extended Drächen's thin, pale arm out for him, steadying it in her hand.

David brought the supplies over and laid them out neatly next to Kim on the cot, in the order in which he would need them. He sanitized his hands again, put on gloves, then quickly swabbed Drächen's inner arm with an iodine wipe and expertly slipped the needle into her vein, attaching the line to the bag of rehydration fluids. Grabbing a syringe, he drew up a dose of Cipro and injected it into the bag. He repeated the operation with Flagyl. He opened the valve, taped the line to the small arm, and was done. Holding the bag in his teeth, careful not to disturb the IV line, he reached for his daughter. Watching him closely to make sure he was using proper dosages, Kim noticed that his hands were rather small for a man of his size. And that they trembled as he took the child from her.

"Here, let me…" said Kim. She took the IV bag out of his mouth and taped it securely to the shoulder of his shirt. She could see he wasn't going to put that baby down any time soon. "Just keep her arm lower than the bag," she added, unnecessarily.

When he stood up, it took no effort at all to heft Drächen's small weight; she seemed lighter than when he last held her to say goodbye. She was so pale… Her red hair was dull and her lips—her pretty mouth, Marie's mouth—were dry and cracked. He craned his neck down to touch her too-warm head with his face. He stood directly over Kim's sidearm and turned his back to her, rocking to and fro, feet planted. To and fro, breathing his daughter in. Even hot and sick and sour-smelling, she was their baby. _Our baby, Marie!_ He stayed there, just brushing the top of her head with his lips, murmuring, "Drächen." She was so very still. _What if I'm too late?_

"What do you call her?" Kim interrupted his spiraling thoughts.

David cleared the emotion out of his throat. "Drächen," he said, clearly, his German pronunciation perfect.

"They call her "Marie" down at the orphanage." When he didn't answer, she busied herself with repacking her bag. Kim wondered why anyone would call such a sweet baby "Little Dragon." And, of course, she knew that the mother's name was Marie. But, she could see that now was not the time to discuss it.

"Where are Father John and Sister Angela?" he asked.

"They have a tent encampment inside the orphanage gates. The water's receded now, and it's safer for the children down there. The dysentery's been making the rounds. When someone gets sick, I bring 'em up here to isolate them. Father John… He's something, isn't he? He trusts me to keep myself and the children safe. _MSF_ will come here first; it's the official relief site."

Everything was catching up with David. He lowered himself into a seated position on the cot recently occupied by Drächen, found a 2x4 support to lean back against. He leaned his head back, looked at Kim.

"What are you doing here?" His face was shadowed with suspicion.

She kept her tone even, as light as possible. "I resigned from the Company after the Berlin operation. A friend of mine recruits for _MSF_. I was a medical tech once, so I volunteered. When the tsunami hit, they sent me here. They'll boot me, by the way, if they find out I'm packing." She pushed a lock of hair back, tucking it behind her ear.

"How'd you know she's mine?" he asked, eyes sharp, searching.

"The picture." When he looked at her blankly, she went to her pack—careful to keep her hands visible at all times—and took out a ziplock baggie. "This was in Mar—Drächen's hand when they gave her to me." She held it out to him and he saw that there was an envelope and a photograph inside.

His face showed surprised recognition. It was Marie and him at the market in Goa; the photo she had stuck in a book. _Marie, what did you do? _Not able to bear the thought of watching the photo burn, he had tossed the whole book into the fire at the shack. That done, he couldn't bring himself to immolate the only other photograph of the two of them in this world. He had put it in his pocket, thinking, _This will mean a lot to Drächen some day_. It had meant a lot to him in the weeks since then.

He set Drachen's lower body down in his lap and took the baggie in his hand, studying the photo. Marie was looking full on into the camera in this one, face radiant. He had looked away, of course. His photo, pressed now between two pages in his leather-bound book (with all the other pictures of dead people, it occurred to him for the first time), showed her looking at him, face just as glowing; he was still looking away from the camera, but towards her. His light.

For just a second, he felt her arms around him, her kiss on his ear before she let go to run and get the camera from her friend. His eyes stinging, he wrangled the bag open with one hand, pulled the envelope out and looked at it. Rotterdam return address in Marie's writing, Canadian stamps and postmark; she must have given it to that silly friend of hers to mail. So she had taken some precautions. Of course, she would think of that. Maybe they had worked and this wasn't the key to them being ID'd in Goa. The bag fluttered to the ground. He exhaled quickly, blinking tears.

"I recognized you, of course," Kim said. "I'm sorry," she added.

A few long moments passed as he looked inside at his grief, wiping his face on the shoulders of his shirt, his hands full of his daughter. His and Marie's. He looked back down at Drächen, placed the picture and envelope on her chest.

"Time will tell for your little girl," Kim told him. "You brought all the right things to help her." Her voice was still husky. It must be a natural characteristic, he decided.

He nodded. He felt an unfamiliar, impotent fear clawing at him as he held the motionless body. He had never seen Drächen sick before, just teething crankiness, sniffles… A reaction to her pre-India shots that gave her fever for two days was maybe the worst illness she had ever suffered, before this. He held her close, closed his eyes. _Just for an hour or two, _he told himself. _Just to be her father, just for an hour or two._


	3. Chapter 3

Man, he was out like a light. Kim had seen battle fatigue before, and from what she knew of Jason Bourne's recent and long-term history, she would ID him as a prime candidate. Amazingly, the light of resolve and commitment was still alive in his eyes. When he went down, though, he went down quick, and small wonder. It wasn't even three months since his girlfriend—the mother of his child—was killed, not to mention everything else he'd been through. Doubtless more than she knew; she'd been out of the loop for almost eight weeks. He was still on the run the day she walked out of Landy's ops center for the last time.

Even though she didn't have clearance, Landy considered her a protégé and so had let her look at the file, briefly. He had endured plenty. Add to it responsibility for the little girl, who must have been on his mind constantly for the two or so years of her life. His mental toughness had to be at least as great as his physical strength for him to still be standing at this point.

_MSF_ rules or no, she had been glad she had her Sig when a man she didn't know came into the tent where she was caring for a child. She had not been entirely surprised to come face to face with Jason Bourne. Shocked when she saw his face looking up from the photo in a Western-featured child's hand in an orphanage in India, yes. Surprised to see him mere days later, no. The short time she had spent working on his case in Berlin had been enough for her—for all of the team—to create a myth around him, one that allowed for his appearance here now that his child was in danger. Despite the stature of that myth, she remained confident that he would not hurt her. Concerns over his plans, and whether he was fit to care for a two-year-old child, were edging out concern for her own self.

Kim approached the twosome, checking to make sure that the IV line was clear and the arm relaxed. Checking visually only. She didn't want to startle Jason Bourne out of a deep sleep, and with his child in his arms. She amended her previous assessment of her personal safety to _He wouldn't hurt me on purpose._ She backed away.

Kim looked around the ragged tent and sighed. Only the one cot; she had sent the rest down to the orphanage. She retrieved her weapon and rolled out her Thermarest pad. She stretched out, holding her firearm on her chest. He wasn't the only one with excellent reflexes. She slept, assured in the fact that no one had successfully sneaked up on her in years.


	4. Chapter 4

A splashing sound woke him. Still sitting up with Drächen in his lap, muscles stiff as cured cement, he looked around to see Marie. She had her back turned to him, dressed in khakis and a camisole, the right strap cutting the tattoo on her shoulder blade perfectly in half. She was rinsing her face from a bottle of water, letting the runoff fall into a plastic basin. Her hair was long, brunette; were they in Madrid?

He felt muddled: he had never seen Marie wear khakis before. Saris, bikinis, maxiskirts, miniskirts, sarongs, leather pants, harem pants, his boxers, and—as often as possible—nothing at all. But khakis, never. His clearing eyes made out the Eagle, Globe and Anchor, with ribbon reading _Semper Fidelis. _He blinked in confusion. Marie's shoulder blade tattoo was flowers…

"You're a Marine," he said, recognizing that it was Kim. He glanced down at Drächen, but she slept on, still fighting the amoebae and bacteria inside her. He put the photo in its envelope and stuck both in his pocket. Rubbed his eyes and tried to focus. It looked like Kim kept up with her 100 pushups x 20 pull-ups daily; her upper body was all lean muscle.

Kim turned around, drying her face. "Good morning. Yes. Not active; I separated about two years ago." She pulled a kurta on over her camisole. She liked to observe the local customs. _Was he sexist_, she wondered. _Affronted by women in his Corps?_ No matter; she had dealt with that plenty in the past, and could do so again.

"So, you feeling rudderless, now?" he asked, this second coincidence pricking him with unease and putting him on the offensive. "The Company replaced the Marines for you; what do you have now that you don't have the Company?"

"Sounds like you know what you're talking about," Kim observed. "But to answer your question: family," she said, regretting her sharpness immediately. She knew how very broken this man's family was; her comeback was undeniably cruel. She continued, dialing it back a notch. "Honor. Courage. Commitment. Those never go away. You should know that."

He grunted, got up, painfully. Found the diaper-changing supplies. So, she had read his file, or at least part of it. Yes, he knew. And he didn't know. He didn't know what honor he had left. Courage… Could you call it courage when fear had been programmed out of you? His commitment had been up in the air for over two years now, except when it came to Marie and Drächen, and his own survival. Drächen, Marie, himself; his family. So, no, not rudderless. Up to his elbows in baby poop, but not rudderless.

"I'm going down to the orphanage," she said. "You've got her covered, and they may need something. Father John will wonder about her. What should I tell him?"

He thought for a moment. "Tell him her father is here. Don't use a name. Take him these." He fastened a new diaper around Drächen's slight form, and, careful of the IV line, cradled her in one arm to dig in his pack with the other one. He separated all but a few IV setups, fluid packs, glucose squeezes, and injectable medications, and shoved the rest toward Kim.

She looked everything over: Flagyl, Cipro, Larium, Lidocaine, Vicoprofen… "What's this for?" She held some up.

"How long have you been off the grid?" he asked.

She looked at her watch. "Since December 27. I was on first recon."

"Haven't had any contact with anyone inside since… ?"

"My last day was November 3rd."

"You haven't talked to Landy? Anyone?"

"No."

There was too much to explain. Way more than she needed to know. He just turned around and pulled up his shirt. The black and blue spoke for itself, as did the angry red streak along his ribs.

Kim gave a low whistle. "Is that wound infected?" she asked.

"I think so, yes."

She tossed back most of the Vicoprofen and six packs of Cipro. "You need these as much as anyone else around here. That's looking swollen," she remarked about the wound. "I'll see if it will drain, later." She grabbed her daypack, starting stuffing supplies into it. "I can use these as I see fit?"

He nodded.

"Okay, thanks. I'll be back in a few hours to assess her. _MSF_ is scheduled to land at 15:00." Checking her sidearm, shouldering her pack, she paused. "You will still be here? She can't travel," nodding her head toward Drächen.

He searched Drächen's face. He knew Kim was right about that. He nodded, and she was gone.

David, working one-handed, tore open two packs of Vicoprofen and swallowed all four tablets, dry. Mindful of the state of his newest bullet wound, he downed a two-pack of Cipro, too.

Looking at Drachen's IV bag, he saw that it was almost empty. He got a new one from his pack, and took her over to the cot to change it. Fresh fluids dripping into the line, he looked Drächen over. Her color was better and her skin was plumper, thanks to the fluids. Her pulse was down, almost to normal, and her respiration was less labored.

She wasn't ready to wake up, David could see that. He took his Glock in his right hand, Drächen in the crook of his left arm, and lowered himself back onto the cot. The baby melted into his chest. _This sleeping stuff is pretty good_, he thought as he closed his eyes.

_He was curled up in bed with Marie, his body wrapped around hers, both of them folding their arms around the tiny form of Drächen. The baby began to fuss and cry. "Shhhh," he said to his two girls. "Shhhh." He was getting up out of the bed, baby in his arms, a dry diaper his aim. "Shhhhh, Papa's here," he told the baby, but she didn't settle the way she usually did. The crying just grew louder. _

David awoke with a start. Drächen was crying, flapping her arm, trying to shake the strange tubing loose. Pushing at him, not recognizing him. Terrified. He sat up, dropping his sidearm to the cot. "Ladybug," he said, softly, "Ladybug, it's Papa." He looked at her worried eyes and saw that he had only a few moments before a full-blown meltdown was underway. He quickly removed the needle from her arm, peeling the tape back and ditching the whole apparatus into the cot, pressing a gauze pad to her arm in its place.

David stood and, cradling the bereft child in his arms, began walking, humming, then tried the words:

_Little birds will sing along in time,  
Leaves will bow down when you walk by…(1)_

Drächen gasped and sniffed, quieting slightly. Her father looked into her blue eyes, mirror images of his own, and saw recognition there. He kept singing, the little girl quiet now. When the song was done, she reached up a hand to touch his face, as if she couldn't believe her eyes. "Papa," she said. Her eyes were tired, but clear.

"Ladybug. Yes, Papa's here." Consumed with gratitude. _Marie, she's back! _

"Mama?_ Ich möchte Mama jetzt sehen…"_(2) Drächen looked up at him, confident in his ability to deliver what she wanted.

"Mama_…" _David paused, searching. _"Mama ist ein Engel jetzt. Du siehst sie in deinen Träumen."_(3) His throat closed around the words.

The child's expression did not change. "_Ich möchte Mama jetzt sehen,"_ she repeated.

"_Ich weiß, _Ladybug_."_ And he did know just how she felt.

Drächen's face was crumpling. "_Ich möchte Mama jetzt sehen."_ She started to wail.

David fumbled in his pocket, pulled out the envelope and shook the photo loose, held it up in front of the small, tear-streaked face. Drächen paused, mid-sob, and brightened a bit.

"Mamapapa," she said, taking the picture in her hand. She pressed it to her chest in a hug, and David felt his heart break, tear apart inside his chest.

There was a gentle cough, and Kim walked into the tent. If she had overheard anything, she didn't indicate, expressing only delight to find a conscious little girl and a relieved father. With his child in his arms and gratitude flooding his face, what she saw was all man; the myth dissipated.

"Kim!" cried the little girl, sadness forgotten, wiggling to get down and run to the visitor. The young woman had been the source of much interest among the children at the orphanage, and Drächen had been as intrigued as the rest up until the time she got sick.

"Hi, Sweetcakes!" Kim caught her up in a hug and balanced her on her hip. "I'm so glad you're feeling better." They had a short chat, in English and German, and then Kim set her down and gave her a bottle of rehydration fluid to drink on her own. The little girl handed her the picture to take the bottle in both hands, drinking big swigs of the saltysweet liquid.

"Um—" Kim did not know what to call him.

He looked at her light hazel eyes for a moment, made a decision. "My name is David."

She hesitated, adjusted. "Hello, David."

He nodded.

"The _MSF_ detail is here. Do you want her to see a physician?" Kim glanced down at the picture in her hand, then handed it to him.

He didn't even have to think about it. "No." The fewer people to see her, to see him, the better. He looked around for the envelope and ziplock, carefully put the photograph away.

"Okay," she said. "I have to go help now. I'm glad she's up and around; the fluids really did the trick. For some other folks, too." David nodded, looked away. She was heading out the door. "I'll look at your wound when I get back."

* * *

(1) For Baby/For Bobbie, words and music by John Denver

(2) "I want Mama, now!"

(3) "Mama is an Angel now. You'll see her in your dreams."

_Author's note: I find it interesting that the German word for "dream" is _Traumen; same root as "trauma."


	5. Chapter 5

It was late when she returned. Again, that gentle cough, and then she entered the tent. In the feeble light of the lone lantern, she saw that David was seated on the cot, Drächen sprawled next to him, sleeping peacefully. Kim thought at first that he was dozing, but saw as she drew closer that he was looking at his child, his eyes glued to the little girl's face. Funny that now she could see they were deep blue in color. She drew closer and touched the baby's forehead with the back of her hand. Cool and dry.

"How is it going, getting to know each other again?" she asked. Her voice was more gravelly later in the day, he noted.

His eyes flickered up to her face, back down to the child's. "Okay. She's changed so much; in a lot of ways she's a completely different person. Nine months is a pretty big portion of her life…" Regret haunted his voice, his face.

Kim nodded, didn't know what to say. Decided to address practicalities. "Did you have anything to eat?" she asked.

"Power Bar."

"I brought you an MRE. But why don't I lance that infection for you before you have it?" She didn't want him hurling his meal while she performed minor surgery. She had seen burlier guys vomit over less.

He stood up. "Where do you want me?"

"Right there is fine. I'll sit." She was pulling instruments and supplies out of her pack. She had to rummage around at the very bottom for something essential that turned out to be a flashlight with a strap that would go around her head. "Need headlights to work in here," she said. She sat back and indicated the supplies she had neatly arrayed, thinking he would want to check them. He glanced them over briefly—he had brought the injectables himself, after all—and pulled his shirt off, turning to present the wound to her, holding his arm up and out of the way. The bruising on his torso was epic. It astounded her that he was walking around. Still, she couldn't help noticing that underneath it all was an amazing physical specimen. His conditioning was superb, as if he had just graduated from Basic Training this morning.

_Focus, Kim._ She put on gloves and eye protection and started cleaning the site with iodine wipes. "I don't think I've ever seen bruising like this before. Did someone push you out a window?"

"I jumped."

_Of course you did,_ she thought. "Here comes the Lidocaine."

David felt the jab of the needle going into his side and then nothing as she incised the swollen skin, careful to keep a Chux pad ready in case it decided to spray. She irrigated the site with saline solution to clean out the infection. Some sutures, an application of topical antibiotic ointment and a bandage, and she was done.

"I can't promise that it'll feel good when the lidocaine wears off, or look good, ever. But it has a chance to heal now." She was bagging up soiled chux pads and disposing of her gloves and sharps.

"Thanks," he said.

"You bet. That shoulder bothering you?" The scar was knotty and red. The Berlin team had read the report from the Moscow police; she knew he had been shot by Gretkhov's assassin-for-hire. And still, he kept going until he made his apology to the Neski's daughter. How he kept from bleeding to death, or freezing to death, or flatlining from shock… It was a mystery of his physiology, his psychology. His will. The myth rose up strong around him again.

He realized he had been standing there, rolling his shoulder vexedly. "Yes." He pulled on his shirt.

"Self-treated?"

"Yes."

When he didn't elaborate, she dropped it. "Here's your MRE." She tossed it to him. "I have no idea what it is, but I think I ate the same flavor in Kosovo in '98."

He sat down next to Drächen, peeled back the cover and started eating, not tasting. He knew it was better not to. He thought for a second, trying to coax names and dates out of his rusty memory. Finally, he gave up. Was rewarded with a rush of mission names. "_Determined Falcon_?" he asked. Conversational; two Marines shooting the breeze. A dim memory of how to do this stepping out of the shadows of his mind.

She looked up, surprised. "_Dynamic Response_ first, then _Determined Falcon_, _Noble Anvil_, _Shining Hope, Joint Guardian_… _Atlas Hinge _was my last mission."

"26th MEU… MCB Camp Lejeune?" he asked.

Kim nodded.

"You did Basic at Parris Island." It wasn't a question; all female recruits have Basic at Parris. "I was at RTD Miramar."

"Lucky; San Diego weather is much more beautiful… The better to enjoy all those pushups in eight inches of surf, right?" Kim was smiling ruefully at the memory. "So you must be from west of the Mississippi?"

She hadn't read everything Landy had. "Missouri." _So they tell me._

"Oh, really?" She smiled reflexively—_Hi, Neighbor!_ "Iowa."

There was no corresponding smile. "You did FMT?"

"Yeah. I could have been a sharpshooter… I had the eye and the hands for it. My scores surpassed some of the guys that did do Scout. But I just could never develop the appetite. I didn't hunger for the pink mist." She glanced at his face, aware that she might be offending him, but why bullshit? "I chose Field Medic Training instead. My DI called it a waste. That my abilities went to a woman." Kim's bow-shaped mouth tightened at the memory.

"Called it a waste," he muttered, the MRE forgotten in his lap. His DI's voice echoed in his head. _"Who are YOU to turn down an invitation to elite training? Have I wasted thirteen weeks of my life on you for you to turn me DOWN?"_

She looked at him, seeing that he wasn't fully there. It wasn't in the file she saw, but she knew what training he took.

He was looking away. "You joined up to go to college?"

"Well, I'm the oldest of six kids, and my folks are farmers. So, yes. But, also, my Dad is a Marine—he served in Vietnam—and that inspired me."

There was a long silence as he looked at his scarred hands, at Drächen. Eventually, he looked back at Kim.

"You did FMT, too?" she asked. _What kind of Special Forces program did that put him in?_

"Yeah. Though, these days, recruits learn enough in Basic to do what I did for her today." He noticed his MRE again, took a bite. "Why'd you separate?"

"I'd had enough combat in Kosovo to last me a lifetime. Even the aid missions are combat assignments… I wanted to get an advanced degree; I studied psych as an undergrad. Intelligence was an interest of mine, and the Agency made a good offer. You?"

"I don't know."

That told her a lot. Still some memory loss. Or, maybe he never knew.

"Why did you quit the Agency?" he asked, giving up on the MRE, setting it aside.

She met his gaze directly. He registered that her features and coloring were frankly Irish: two broad cheekbones, pug nose, a sprinkle of light freckles across all three. Brunette hair glowing golden-red even in the dim light of the lantern. "Treadstone, Abbott… I couldn't be a part of that once I knew… Once I knew."

He didn't have a response to that.

Kim was talked out. She wearily set her Thermarest pad out on the ground.

"Do you want the cot?"

_Gallantry? From Jason Bourne? _

Kim shook her head. "Drächen needs it more than me. You too." She settled back with a sigh. "What's your plan for the two of you?"

He didn't answer. He was smoothing the hair back from Drachen's face..

"_MSF_ says that Red Cross will be moving in this week to help with relief efforts. Maybe you and Drächen should move down to the orphanage compound tomorrow. The orphanage is gated; no one comes in without Father John's permission." She checked her sidearm and reached to shut off the lantern. "Good night."


	6. Chapter 6

Back in November, seeing Kim's loss of faith, Landy suggested that she apply her outstanding sick and vacation time to her two weeks' notice, and Kim had agreed. She didn't have to go back to the hub another day. With no household to move, only a suitcase full of clothes and a handbag full of personal electronics, she flew to Des Moines, stopping only for her flight transfers. Her parents met her at the airport and drove her home to Winterset. Once there, she spent a lot of time in her old room, lying on the bed and brooding, or taking long walks on the farm.

Her parents and youngest sister, so happy to see her home at first, didn't know what to make of this Kim. Ellen, at seventeen, was hurt most by Kim's withdrawal. Kim was her hero, and it stung to be shut out by her. All she seemed to want was to be alone.

Kim was deeply ensconced in her solitude about a week after her arrival, staring blankly at the wall from her bed at about three in the afternoon when her mother tapped on the door. Not pausing for permission to enter, she came in and shut the door behind her. Kim steeled herself; she had been on the receiving end of this talk more times than she cared to remember. When her pet rabbit died when she was eight. When she got cut from varsity volleyball at fifteen, and had to play JV for one more year. When her high school boyfriend dumped her two weeks before the senior prom.

"Kim, you can't just sulk like this forever. I don't know what happened with your job, but you've got to pull yourself together and think about what you want to do next."

"I know, Mom. I'm trying; really I am. I just… I just don't know what to do with some of the things I've seen. Some of the things I know now; I don't know how to live with them."

Anne Ramsey saw the anguish in her daughter's face and came to sit on the bed. Her arms went around her oldest child and she pulled her close, feeling the sobs shaking loose and the tears flowing onto the shoulder of her blouse. "Shhhhh, baby. Okay; okay now.

Kim sat back, nose red, face streaked. "I thought I'd be doing good in the world, Mom. I thought I'd be saving American lives…" She couldn't say too much more.

"You were disappointed. You feel disillusioned."

Kim nodded, face dissolving again. "Yes."

"I know you can't really talk to me about it, Baby. But your father might understand."

"Daddy?"

Anne had seen the look in Kim's eyes before, when her husband came home from Southeast Asia with the 2nd Battalion 9th Marines in 1975. "He knows, Sweetie; still has bad dreams, sometimes. Give him a chance to help."

Kim started helping out, driving her sister to school after an early five-mile run and her 100 situps and some pullups each morning, and then finding her dad on the farm when she returned. They mended fence, cleared brush. It felt good to work her body in the cold, clean air and to give her mind a break. They talked about the Corps, and he told her—for the first time—about his service in Khe San, the last chaotic days in Saigon before the fall, then the bad luck and miscues of the _USS Mayaguez_ rescues.

"No man left behind, my ass" he said, snorting to hide the emotion in his throat. The memory just as raw as the reality had been, more than thirty years before. "I was due to re-up then, but I just walked away. Some guy came on base and wanted to talk to me about getting into Intelligence, but I just said 'No, thank you.' You were on the way then; I brought your mother home, started working the farm with Daddy. Things started making sense again." He sighed. He hadn't wanted this for Kim, this doubt and confusion. The weight of being a part of irreparable mistakes.

She told him about Berlin, admitting for the first time that she didn't just work in the CIA Human Resources department. "I wanted to make Covert Ops," she said, voice still reflecting how exciting she had thought that would be. "But when I saw what that really could mean… What we're doing to people in the name of national security, and how it can be manipulated for personal gain…" She told him about Bourne, without using names. "He had a family and a life somewhere, Dad. It all got completely erased, and nobody will help him get it back. It makes me sick."

"Well, then, you were right to leave, Pumpkin. You'll find your way, don't worry."

It was the Holiday Dance at Winterset High School, and Kim had volunteered to chaperone. Was it only a decade ago, a little more, that she had danced in this gym with her boyfriend? The rat, he dumped her six months later for Melinda Reeves. She looked around at the shiny faces of the teenagers. She had thought this was magical, in her time, and saw that they did, too.

"Would you like some punch?" A man was standing next to her, holding out a cup of neon-red liquid.

She smiled an automatic smile, "Oh, thank you."

He held out his hand, "I'm Alan Wagner. I teach science."

"Kim Ramsey," she said, shaking it.

"You couldn't be Ellen Ramsey's mother. Sister? And Fiona, and Jamie?" He had dark hair and brown-black eyes. Very clean cut and plain. Nice.

"Yes, and Greta and Maddie." Kim named the two oldest, after herself. One a doctor, one an architect. Both married, both living in Des Moines.

"I never heard of those two, but the rest did their time in my classes. Are you visiting from out of town?"

"Yes, an extended visit."

"It's big of you to spend an evening chaperoning a high school dance."

"Oh, it's fun to come back and see the place again, from a different perspective. And, from my sister's perspective, it's a little less mortifying to have me here than our mother."

He smiled, nodded. Began to flirt. She flirted back. He asked if he could call her, and she gave him the phone number at her parent's house.

Ellen was mortified that Kim was going on a date with her teacher. "What if someone sees you?"

"Well, then I'll smile and say 'Hello!'" Kim responded calmly.

"I'm going to die of embarrassment! What will Becka say?"

"Embarrassment has never been fatal yet," observed their father.

Ellen huffed out of the room.

The doorbell rang, and Brian Ramsey stood up. "I'll get it, Daddy," said Kim, but he gave her a look and walked to the front door. She may be twenty-eight years old and score Expert on the firing range, his look told her, but he was still going to inspect any guy who came to his door asking for her.

The date was standard Winterset fare: a movie and dinner. He had a sense of humor, good manners. When he asked her if he could call again, she said yes. He was always on time, always paid, was respectful to her parents and to her. His kisses were sweet and held promise. It was tempting to make promises in return. He looked so good, on paper. But things were not making any more sense to her than before.

On their third date, two weeks after the dance at the high school, she told him, "I'll be leaving town soon."

"Oh?" They were in his car, having just left the movie theater at the mall. He was surprised. Hurt, too.

"I volunteered for _Medecins Sans Frontières_. I don't know yet where they'll send me…"

"Oh." He looked down, then at her. "I wish you'd stay. I mean, I know we just started going out, and everything…" A weak smile.

"Alan, I like you. I just, I want to do work that will utilize my training. I have to do some good, something to make up for all the bad that I've seen." _And been a part of,_ she thought.

He nodded, drove her home. "Call me when you're in town," he told her.

She nodded, kissed his cheek, went inside. Eight days later, the tsunami struck. Kim was on a plane to India within twenty-four hours.


	7. Chapter 7

_It is nighttime. He just turned eight; his birthday party had a rocket ship theme this year. His family is driving home from the autumn ox roast at St. Francis of Assisi Church. In the glare from an oncoming car's headlights, he can see his little brother, Gordon, slumped over against the car door, fast asleep. David's eyes are heavy; he is about to fall asleep, too. A song comes on the radio, and his eyes open for a moment; it is one of his parents' favorites. He can see Dad's gentle hand trace his mother's jawline, caress her neck, as he sings along for a few lines, an octave below the recorded voice._

…the wind will whisper your name to me  
Little birds will sing along in time,  
Leaves will bow down when you walk by  
And morning bells will chime.(1)

_His eyes are closing again as he drifts off on the waves of music. The scream of tires sidelong on asphalt wakes him; a split second later comes impact, and all is darkness again._

David jolted awake with a gasp. It took him a moment to remember where he was. India... Goa? He was reaching for Marie to tell her about his dream before he placed himself in the tsunami-relief tent in Kalipatnam. He sat up, painfully, and checked on Drâchen. Sleeping. He started to lean forward to rub his face, but the stitches in his side pulled sharply, inspiring a grunt of pain. He looked up to see Kim regarding him from the doorway.

"I think my parents are dead," he told her, the need to share the memory overriding everything else. "They died when I was a kid. A car wreck."

"I'm sorry," she said. Understanding:_ This is what his life is: one shattering realization after another. _Not knowing what to do.

He stood up carefully.

"Need these?" she asked, tossing him a pack of Vico.

"Two, please," he said. She tossed a second one over. He emptied both packets into his mouth and swallowed.

"Did you think about what I said, about moving down to the orphanage? I think it would be good for Drächen, too; she might miss her friends."

He stood still for a moment, tried rubbing his face with the hand on the side that didn't have a bullet wound. "Yeah. I think we should do it. They know me as Gilberto do Piento. Did you use any other name for me?"

She shook her head, _No_.

He nodded. "Okay. You don't know me. I just showed up and you recognized me from Drächen's photo." It was too soon, the pills weren't working yet, but he got up anyway and hobbled over to his bag. Pushed in the things that were straggling out, zipped it up. "You going now?"

"Red Cross is scheduled to be here at 0800." She said.

He put on his pack, hoisted the slumbering Drächen, wincing. "Lead the way," he said. Just then, Drächen woke up. Eager to go back to the orphanage, she wanted to walk on her own.

"I don't have any shoes for you, Sweetcakes," said Kim. "The ground isn't safe for your bare feet." There was debris everywhere. One of them would have to carry her.

This did not sit well with Drächen's two-year-old powers of reasoning. Her lower lip was starting to protrude when her father opened his pack and pulled out a pair of small white tennis shoes. Just about the right size; maybe a little large. Drächen was blasé: _Of course my Papa has everything I need_. She immediately sat on the ground for him to help her put them on.

Kim was touched. _How had he thought of that? _

Shoes on, the small party departed for the orphanage.

The devastation at the orphanage compound was truly bleak: out of four buildings, only the battered remains of two walls were still standing. David's mouth went dry as he imagined Drächen and the other children running, screaming. _Marie, it could have been so bad… I thought she would be safe here. _He felt gratitude for Drächen's well-being fountain up inside him.

At Kim's appearance, a flood of children engulfed them; she seemed to know all of them by name. "Why aren't you in your classes?" she asked them.

"It's Saturday!" A dozen voices piped up. David noticed a little girl of about four hugging Drächen, an embrace joyously returned by his little girl.

"Who's that?" he asked Kim.

"Indali. She and Drächen LOVE each other. They each have their own bed, but somehow, by morning, they're always in one of them together. Soul sisters…"

As David observed, the two small heads, one dark and black-haired and one pale and red-haired, bowed together, whispers and smiles evident. Drächen led Indali to David, saying, "_Dieses ist mein Papa!"_

"Hello, Papa!" said Indali. "Drächen, come see my slate! I wrote my name. Kim, come too!" She bore them away on her tide of excitement.

Sister Angela hurried up to David. "Father John will want to see you," she said. He nodded, and followed the Sister.

"Mr. do Piento." Father John said, betraying no surprise. Standing up from his makeshift desk inside the tent that was his office and bedroom, he held out his hand. "You've come for Marie?"

David looked at him blankly for a moment, then realized he was talking about Drächen and nodded, shaking the priest's hand. He waited for questions, sitting carefully in the chair that the priest indicated. The stitches protested slightly. He shifted, and his shoulder ached. He sat still. Better.

"Is the child's mother with you?" asked the priest.

"She's dead." David looked the priest in the eye, did not elaborate.

"May God relieve your sorrow, my son." The priest smoothly digested this disclosure. "We appreciated your contribution of medicine," he said, after a silence. "Thank you."

David nodded. "The tsunami—was anyone hurt?"

"No, thank God. We received word and ran to higher ground before the inundation."

David exhaled in relief. "But everything is lost?"

"Everything material, yes. But where there is life, there is hope." The priest's eyes were cheerful in the shade of the tent. "Ah, but one thing did survive. The safe. You might want these?" He reached under the battered table he was using for a desk and pulled out two envelopes. They had the stretched look of paper that had been soaked and then dried out. He handed them over.

David took the thin one, the one containing Drächen's identifying papers, and put it in his pocket. He tossed the fat one, full of money, back to the priest. "You'll need this to rebuild," he said. He thought for a moment; he needed more time to heal and formulate a plan. The post-tsunami chaos would be a good cover. "I'd like to stay and help. But I like to keep my good works quiet."

The priest nodded, put the money back under his desk. "It's settled, then. Will you have some breakfast?"

* * *

(1) _For Baby/For Bobbie,_ Words and Music by John Denver


	8. Chapter 8

David moved into a tent in the orphanage compound with Drächen. At Kim's suggestion, he sent his little girl off with Sister Angela after breakfast each morning to take part in her regular routine with the other children.

"She'll be fine," Kim said. "The routine is good for her, she loves Sister Angela, and Indali is her best friend. And you need some recovery time." He hated to admit it, but she was right. His body was not bouncing back, not this time. He rested while Drächen was away, often sleeping the morning through, aided by his medication intake.

The dreams were vivid. Marie; Treadstone; MEUSOC; regular duty; Officer Candidate School; college and ROTC; growing up with Gordon in relative neglect under his uncle's wardship after his parents died… When he awoke, he would lie back, flooded with emotion. Looking for any shred of sense to it all. Sometimes, there was some, a small sense of familiarity, an iota of comfort. An order was emerging: structure, hard work and physical exertion were his salvations. Responsibility, for his brother, the household, for the men and women in his unit, always shouldered. Excellence, always achieved. Loneliness, a constant—until Marie, and the gift that came through her, Drächen. Seeing these patterns was a blessing, compared to the chaos of dreams past.

Father John offered the _MSF_ detail space in the compound for their operations, so they saw Kim often, much to Drächen's delight. She visited their tent after dinner sometimes, checking to see how the toddler went down to sleep. Drächen loved seeing her, and went to sleep best on the nights when she visited. It was clear Kim was a Marine for Life; she was living General Order 5: _To quit my post only when properly relieved._ She had been responsible for Drächen, and she wasn't going to stop being responsible until her concerns were answered. David understood that Kim was assessing his parenting skills.

Those skills were getting a workout. Drächen alternately clung to him and rejected him. She asked for Marie and sobbed when he did not produce her. He was pretty good, he thought, in any situation but that one. His guilt over Drächen's loss was eating him alive.

One evening, after Drächen was asleep, Kim lingered. "Reuniting can be rough going," she said, sympathetically.

He looked at her with haunted eyes. "She keeps asking for Marie, over and over. I tell her that Mama is an angel now, over and over. When is she going to understand that her mother is not coming back?" The creases in his brow looked indelible, the lines around his mouth deepening as he chewed his lip.

Kim spoke gently, "She's awfully little to comprehend all that's happened, David. She's been through so many changes; she keeps asking because she thinks maybe that fact is going to change, too. It's actually reassuring to her to hear the same answer from you repetitively. She only needs to know what she can understand: Mama's not here, and Mama's love is always with her. She has what she needs most in the world if she can hear that, and hear it from you."

He was holding his head in his hands. "I can't keep going over it with her. I killed her."

"What do you mean?" Kim knew it was Kirill who killed Marie.

"I was driving; he saw me. He was chasing us, we were in the Jeep and he was chasing us in his rental Hyundai. I made Marie switch with me and drive so that I could bail out and get a clean shot. We took the shortcut to open up distance. I thought he would follow, the long way. But he didn't do that. He must have gone on foot to get his shot off… He shot her, shot the driver's seat, thinking it was me. He shot her in the neck and we went into the water and she was gone, but I still tried, I gave her mouth-to-mouth. She was already dead. I left her there, left her in the river." His face looked broken as he relived his loss.

"She was so good…When he shot her, she was pleading for his life, telling me I had a choice. I killed her; I killed her. I wish I had the choice to make it be me…" Sobs shook his body, and Kim rubbed his back, murmuring small endearments, feeling the force of his grief. He heaved an explosive sigh, and the storm was past. Kim withdrew her hand as he sat immobile.

"What if it was you?" she asked, her voice quiet, her eyes seeking his eyes.

"What?" His eyes were bleak and downcast; unknowable.

"What if it was you? Would it have made any difference for Marie? Would she be alive now?"

"Maybe she would."

"Could she have gotten out? Underwater? Without you to help her? I don't know, and you don't either. You might both be dead, and then where would Drächen be now?

He was clasping and unclasping his hands. "If I had never approached her in the first place, she would be alive right now."

"That sounds like Ward Abbott talking." Kim had been present the first time Landy played the tape of Abbot and Bourne in Berlin, her disgust inflamed by Abbott's deflections, his manipulation. She picked up the photo of Jason and Marie from where it lay in its ziplock bag on the campstool next to the cot. "When I look at this picture, I see a woman in love. Most of us would risk anything to feel what she's feeling right there."

He took the picture and saw the love shining on Marie's face. Tears welled up in his eyes again.

"She loved you, David. You loved each other and that made her happy. Look at her face—can't you see it? You made that beautiful child together…" Kim squeezed his hand between both of hers, then let go. "You have a lot to figure out, but isn't Drächen worth it? Wouldn't it be worth it to have a life, a full life, again?"

He shook his head. "I've done such bad things…"

"I know. And I know, too, that you're a good person; you deserve a life."

He felt a surge of—what? Love? Something he didn't know how to express. For Kim. With it came panic: who could survive involvement with him?

She looked down, her face half-obscured by her long hair. Asked, in her cinnamon-tinged voice, "How long's it been since you had a friend, David?"

He thought. Since before Treadstone? MSOC? OCS? Basic? His panic receded, replaced by simple desolation. He looked at Kim's face as she tucked her hair back behind her ear and touched the tiny crucifix on the chain around her neck. David nodded. Friends.

They heard a noise at the doorway, and both looked up sharply. In the shadows, they saw Indali, hesitating guiltily, caught sneaking in.

"Hi, Sweetheart," said Kim, holding out her arms, and the little girl came and climbed into her lap. "Did you come to see Drächen?"

Indali nodded, and Kim glanced a question at David. He nodded once, quickly. The two little girls comforted each other, anyone could see that. Kim stood and carried the girl to the cot where Drächen lay asleep, rocking her and kissing her head as she walked. Set gently in the cot, Indali cuddled right up to her friend. Kim sank down to the floor next to the cot and stroked the child's long, dark hair until she, too, was sleeping. She kissed each precious face, and got up to go.

"I'll let Sister Angela know where Indali is," she whispered to David on her way out of the tent. He stretched out on his cot, listening to the sweet respirations of the two little girls.

_December, 1992. The air is heavy and hot, 80 degrees Farenheit and 90 percent humidity at midnight. Rubble is piled up, shoulder high in some places: the remains of terminal buildings and runways at the Mogadishu Airport. Landing Craft Air Cushions are bringing in load after load of Marines from offshore. After the LCACs will come enormous military transport craft, loaded with the supplies needed to execute _Operation Restore Hope_. 2nd Lieutenant David Webb, USMC, looks around in satisfaction; his Marine Expeditionary Unit Special Operations Command detail had been first ashore, securing the airport for this mission. Everything went smoothly for his men: no injuries, no contingencies. They are the best of the best and this operation's good result is a testament to that. They are paving the way to food relief, stemming the tide of 500,000 dead from malnutrition._

_The road is lined with tiny children, yelling "Americo! Americo!" Detailed in with a supply battalion until more reinforcements arrive, his unit is headed into Mogadishu proper. The stench of garbage and rotting animal flesh and human corpses hangs heavy in the humid air. The graceful, Italianate architecture is defiled by bombing; no building within sight has more than two walls and remnants of a roof. Bullet-riddled vehicles line the route; children climb on the twisted wreckage, laughing. They arrive at Checkpoint 77; their bunker until further notice. Speed metal music blares 24/7 per PSYOPS protocols. Heat and torpor and stench are everywhere. And children, hundreds, all with dark skin, dark hair and the European features native to their region. Drawn by the spectacle of the uniformed Americans._

_Patrols are drawn by lot. Some at night, some during daylight. Nighttime patrols are eerie, fraught with terror. His own men scattered into positions of responsibility, Webb finds that leading his newly assigned detail weighs heavy; some of these Marines are on their first patrols. They are learning from him: keep moving, stay in contact with the squad, anything out of the ordinary—someone lighting a cigarette in a window, a new path through the rubble, a vehicle in a different place—should be perceived as a threat._

_He meets a little girl's eye for just a moment, one off-duty afternoon, and it is enough to earn him a sidekick. He tries to dissuade her from following him, but she insists on doing so nonetheless. Her name is Lyra. She is five. He starts looking for her during his off-duty hours, spends them playing with her. Other children flock to him, as well. The Company starts referring to him as "Pied Piper." Fuck them. Baby Marines, all some of them want to do is kill something. The biggest part of his job is making sure that they don't kill the wrong thing._

_One day, he tells Lyra to meet him at the perimeter after dark so he can give her food. She is not there when he goes. "Cover me," he tells two of his detail, stepping beyond the wire. He finds her, playing outside her house, two alleys over. Her mother rushes out to take the food when she sees him._

"_She yours now," she tells him, eyes glittering at his supposed perversion and at her collusion to it. She is maybe only eighteen, herself._

_Webb feels a wave a revulsion-tinged rage wash over him. He wants to put a bullet in the mother's head and seize that little girl; take her away with him. Out of this hellhole, to a place where living past the age of ten would be a blessing, not a curse._

_Instead, he nods. "But only for me," he says, handing over more cornmeal, some chocolate. The mother nods, and he grabs her arm at the elbow, twisting just enough for there to be no misunderstanding. "Only for me." She gasps at the pain, but her eyes still glitter. He turns, releasing her, and heads back to C77._

_Back inside the perimeter, his Marines are about to soil their shorts. "Begging your pardon, Sir," yelps one of them. "But that wasn't the smartest choice, Sir, to go past our sightline. These Marines were about to call a Reac Force to recover you…" Of course, he is right. Lieutenant Webb just nods and walks away._

_He takes an interpreter next time he meets Lyra, makes it clear where he will meet her each evening to give her food for her family. He spends all of his non-sleeping off-duty time with Lyra and the other children, playing, trying to create childhood for them, hoping to keep the predators at bay. Two weeks later, his MEUSOC detail ships out. The last thing he sees of Checkpoint 77 is Lyra, hunkered down under the shell of a van, crying as he disappears from her view._

David opened his eyes to inky night. Stole over to the cot bearing Indali and Drächen. Sat back against the tent frame, keeping watch. These children would have a childhood, if he had any say about it. And he intended to, for both of them.

* * *

_Author's note: yes, "Lyra" is the word for Italian currency, before the Euro was adopted. Mogadishu was under Italian control in days of old…_


	9. Chapter 9

_Sorry about upload mis-fire, folks. Hope you enjoy the chapter._

* * *

David was checking a load of building materials as it came off a truck when Kim and Indali came looking for him one afternoon in mid-February. Danged cheap concrete; half the blocks were cracked or broken in two. The two females waited while David and the driver argued good-naturedly about the damage. Kim, holding Indali, pretended to drop the little girl, catching her on the way down. Indali shrieked with laughter at this game. When that lost its luster, they played a counting game. In the end, the driver loaded all the broken pieces back up and drove away.

"Trouble?" asked Kim.

"No, not really" David replied with equanimity. He had learned that the locale had its own time-space continuum and quality standards. Indali was hugging his knees, and he swung her up in his arms, then hoisted her to his shoulders, finishing the counting game on her behalf, "Eight, nine, ten!" He started walking toward the tents, checking his watch, and Kim fell in with him.

"There's a doctor who just arrived with _MSF_, Geert Friemans," Kim told David. "He's Dutch. I served with him in the Combined Forces in Bosnia. He's one of the foremost orthopedic surgeons in Europe now. I think he can help you with that shoulder. I trust him, and I think you can, too."

"Was he your boyfriend?" he asked, artlessly. If he was her boyfriend, then she probably had a good idea of who he was.

Kim blinked at him, glanced at Indali, embarrassed. What did that have to do with anything? But she saw no reason to lie or demur. "Y-yes." She had been way to young for him and it had been a tour-of-duty romance, neither expecting anything more. That had made it easier to remain friends. If David was expecting details, he was going to be disappointed. She felt a flush rise to her face nonetheless.

He lifted Indali down to the ground, rubbed his shoulder, sighing. It sure didn't take much to make her blush, especially considering that she served four years in the Marines. "I'll meet him."

* * *

"Geert!" Kim strode up to a tall, blond man in wire-rimmed glasses and hugged him energetically. When she stepped back, he kissed her on both cheeks and said something that made her laugh.

Kim beckoned David over. "Dr. Geert Friemans, meet Gilberto do Piento. Geert, I told you a bit about Gil's shoulder; I think you might be able to help."

Geert motioned for David to go into one of the makeshift exam rooms. David stood back waiting for Kim to go first, a request for her to come along. Once the curtain was pulled, David shucked his shirt. The bruises were almost gone, showing yellow and green instead of black and blue. Still, they were remarkable for their sheer square-footage. Their faded hue revealed a parade of old scars, evidence of his prior occupations.

Geert just stared at the altered skin tone for a moment, dumbstruck. "Man," he said in heavily accented English, "What happened to you?"

"_Ongevallen_," was David's curt answer, in Dutch. Accidents.

Geert looked at Kim, eyebrows raised. She gave him an innocent stare. Accidents, indeed.

Geert shrugged with his eyebrows only, and zeroed in on the shoulder. "Came in the back, ja? Exited here. Pretty large caliber. There's probably some bone fragments or loose cartilage in there causing you problems."

"Can you do anything about it?" asked Kim.

"Ja, sure. Come back tomorrow morning at 6:00. I'll clean it out for you."

They walked in the direction of the school tent together, David hyper-alert, focused and intense. "I will do this only if you are there in the room, the whole time. Drächen can stay with Sister Angela and Indali until the surgery is over, and then I want her—and you—with me until I wake up. And your Sig." He paused to draw a breath, and she saw how scared he was. Scared that something would happen to him, that someone here wanted to harm him; frightened of what would happen to Drächen if that were true. A mere mortal, with mortal concerns.

She stopped walking, and he reflexively stopped, too. She put her hands on his shoulders, looked into his agitated eyes. "We'll do it whatever way you need it to be. It's going to be okay."

They made the arrangements with Sister Angela, and arrived early at the surgery compound the next morning. The anesthesiologist came in for the pre-surgery rundown.

"You have a choice for your pre-anesthesia, either Ketamine or Methohexital…"

"Methohexital," interrupted Kim. David looked at her, questioning.

"Ketamine causes hallucinations," she told him. He nodded, approving her choice; the dreams were enough, already.

"For the general, all we have is Isofluorane."

Kim nodded, David nodded, and the doctor went to get his gear.

"Ready, Marine?" asked Kim. David felt the pinch of the needle going in, and then everything started fading, Kim's hand on his the only clarity. Geert came in, said a big hello.

_Why do surgeons always do that?_ he wondered. _I can hear just fine, I just can't move_. He was starting to feel panicky, fight the anesthesia, then everything went black.

"_Erklärst es wieder_." He could hear Drächen clearly, but he didn't know which story she wanted him to tell. "_Erklärst es wieder_." He tried to talk, tried to remember, tried to reach out for her.

Then he heard Kim's voice, quiet and calm. "OK, Sweetcakes, I'll tell it again." Her hand settled on his for a moment, gave a squeeze, and he relaxed. "Once upon a time, the world needed Drächen. She was born to her Mama, Marie, and her Papa, David. Oh, how Mama loves Drächen! Mama nurses Drächen, and changes her, and sleeps with Drächen in her arms. There is no limit to Mama's love for Drächen. Papa loves Drächen…"

"And Kim!" piped up Drächen.

"Yes," said Kim, slowly, "Kim loves Drächen…"

David wanted to hear the rest of the story, but he was so sleepy…

_He is wide awake. He has been waiting for hours, watching through his scope, but he is not tired. He sees everything in the target's apartment: the outlines of the furniture telling him what rooms he's looking into: sofa is the living room, nightstand is the bedroom, crib is the baby's room. A hallway light comes on, spilling in to all the rooms. His target enters the baby's room, leans over the crib—smiling, he can see through the scope—just reaching in a tender hand, smiling. Moving the crosshair from the target's mouth to the target's forehead, Jason Bourne squeezes the trigger._

David jolted awake in the dark, gasping, his shoulder protesting sharply his sudden movement. His heart a sledgehammer in his chest as he looked around. He saw Drächen nestled in Kim's arms, both of them asleep in a cot pushed close to his bed, inside the same canopy of mosquito netting. He tried to swallow, to breathe. His mouth was dry and he couldn't seem to get enough air. He closed his eyes. He felt a weight on the mattress beside him, looked to see Kim setting Drächen there, felt her touch his forehead. Like Marie used to do. She disappeared momentarily, reappearing with a bottle of water and a straw. He drank, lay back, feeling his daughter next to him. Feeling sick all over.

"You take her," he whispered, raspy.

She had never seen him pass on cuddling Drächen before. Her face showed concern. "Are you in pain?" Kim asked, gently retrieving the sleeping baby. "A bad dream?" At a whisper, her voice was smokier than ever.

He nodded his head: yes and yes. She had some pills ready and she put them in his mouth, held the water for him again, balancing Drächen on her hip. The pills consumed, she settled back onto the cot, snuggling the child close, unable to resist nuzzling that red hair.

David closed his eyes, worked to settle his mind on something else. "How did you know that she nursed?" he asked.

"You heard the story? She told me all about nursing. She has great nostalgia for her nursing days." Kim smiled a bit, remembering how long it took her to decode Drächen's terminology. "She taught me several new German words for 'boobs.' 'Busi' is my favorite."

David grunted. He remembered those days, too.

"What a wonderful gift for her mother to give her," Kim said. "Had she always planned to nurse?"

David swallowed. "I don't know," he said, eyes closed. "I wasn't with them when she was born. I sent Marie away… For her safety. I didn't know the baby was on the way… I only found them when Drächen was four months old."

"Oh." Kim thought a moment. "You know, all she needs to know is that, the first time her Mama and Papa saw her, they each thought she was the most beautiful thing they had ever seen. I know that's got to be true." She reached over and grasped the hand on his good side.

The pain in his shoulder was receding, and with it any clarity of mind. He pulled her hand to his face and tucked it under his chin. He looked as vulnerable as a little boy, seeking that small comfort. Kim tried to doze, despite quickly losing all circulation in her arm. She snapped awake when she felt someone climbing into the cot with her and Drächen. It was Indali, her dark eyes apologetic, but intent on joining them. Kim sighed, made room.

When he opened his eyes again, it was daytime. A chair was in the cot's place next to his bed, and Kim was sitting in it. Watching, waiting.

"Drächen?"

"She's with Sister Angela and Indali at breakfast. She gave you a kiss before she went. That little girl has a big love for her papa," Kim said. "How are you?"

He took an inventory of sensations. "I'm okay," he said.

"How's the pain?"

"Not too bad."

Kim nodded, knowing that this meant that anyone else would be begging for morphine. She looked at his eyes, her face neutral. "You had a bad dream last night."

"Yes." Looking away.

"Was it a mission, a flashback?"

"Yes." Eyes flying around the room, everywhere but on her.

"Can you tell me?"

His eyes finally came to rest on hers, guarded. "I staked out the apartment, waited for the target to come home. I had a clear shot through the window in the baby's room…" He looked so ashamed, his eyes bereft.

Kim focused on keeping her body language detached, took a breath. "I think you have stress injury, David. PTSD. It needs treating." She paused, her eyes not relinquishing their contact with his face, while he recoiled, looked at the ceiling.

"In the Corps, if one of your men got injured, wouldn't you take him out of the field? If Drächen had a broken leg, wouldn't you put a cast on it? You have bounced back from trauma after trauma… Your body and your mind have finally had enough. It's possible that you had stress injury even before your Treadstone training. What was your Treadstone training, anyway?" She restrained herself from mentioning the missions he'd executed with MSOC, the loss of his parents when he was a child. He was already on the verge of being overwhelmed by the memories that he was actively dealing with.

He kept his eyes on the ceiling, muttered, "Water tanks… Body board… Hood over my head… No sleep… Pills…"

Kim digested, disgust welling up in her. "Wombosi told the press that when a gunman came to kill him, some of his children were with him…"

"Yes."

Though Kim was outwardly impassive, there was sorrow mixing with disgust inside her now. The choices he'd been faced with in that moment would be enough to make anyone unravel. She set those thoughts aside. David Webb didn't need her pity, and it wasn't going to help him, either.

"Here's what I know. Any intensely stressful situation pulls you into your lower brain, where you can only act on instinct. Pile on too many of those situations, and you get trapped there, in the instinctive brain, in panic. Your natural inclinations and training helped you resist that effect for a very long time. Now that time is up. You can retrain your brain to react differently to stress, though. I only have the basics, but I can help you get started. It can only be good for you, for Drächen, to tackle this."

They agreed that she would come by once a week, specifically to work on this with him. "The rest of the time: just friends," she said. Still, she couldn't stop thinking about how she felt when he clasped her hand to him while he slept.

* * *

David was gathering his things to move back to the orphanage compound the next morning when a woman wearing an _MSF_ badge and a white coat came into his recovery tent.

"Hi, I'm Rebecca," she said, holding out her hand. She was from the North of England, judging by her accent. "I'm the physician's assistant who helped Dr. Friemans with your surgery."

He shook, meeting her eye for just that brief moment, before turning back to his task.

"You're headed back to your regular quarters?" she asked. "I just need to do the final follow-up exam. Would you remove your shirt, please?"

In a hurry—he wanted to eat breakfast with Drächan, Indali and Kim—he acquiesced.

She fixed a blood pressure cuff to his upper arm, looking at his face as she squeezed the Velcro tight to his bicep. He could feel her breath on his skin as she pumped it up and took the reading. "I didn't need to do any of your after-care," she said, "as you've your own private nurse."

He glanced at her; her face was alert, focused on his with a hint of a smile. He looked straight ahead again. "Kim's not my nurse, or anyone's nurse, for that matter."

Rebecca moved around in front of David to check the incision, touching lightly around it with her ungloved hand. As she leaned in to get a closer look, her breast brushed his arm. Twice. His body responded. Noticing this, Rebecca slid her hand from his shoulder to his belly and down the front of his pants.

His first thought was of Kim: _What would she think?_ His distaste for being ambushed quickly eclipsed his arousal. He had her wrist in his hand and up in the air before either of them blinked.

"You don't glove up for exams?" he asked, holding her wrist, not twisting.

"Oh, I must've forgotten," she said, face coloring.

He turned her loose and picked up his shirt and his pack. He left her standing there with her clipboard, checked his watch as he pulled on his shirt. Still time to eat with Kim and the children.


	10. Chapter 10

David was relieved that he didn't have to describe his memories to Kim, not unless he wanted to. When he did choose to tell her things—as he was choosing to do more and more often—she just listened. Then she would give him different relaxation and coping techniques to use when the flashbacks occurred. There was deep breathing, progressive relaxation, journaling.

"I've been doing that," he said. "Marie got me started doing that."

"Good!" Kim said, positive. "No wonder you've made so much progress. My only advice is to let it take you where it's going, rather than trying to push for answers."

He found that her suggestions seemed to be helping. He felt less overwhelmed by memories and dreams. Less torn up by Drächen's demands for Marie, able to focus on comforting the child rather than withdrawing from his searing sense of culpability.

His shoulder healed up nicely and within six weeks, he was building back up to his usual 300 pushups and 50 pullups daily. It was easy to give up his Vicoprofen now that the shoulder didn't ache all the time.

"Geert does good work," he told Kim. They were running along the road near the orphanage. He had her up to six miles per day. By about mile four, he noticed, the skin on her face, arms and legs tended to go from strawberries and cream to a pleasing red flush.

"They say he's the best," she looked down at the road, avoiding a muddy pothole. The rains had been frequent and intense lately.

David glanced at her. They were right at the four mile mark, judging from her complexion. "Wasn't he too old for you?" he asked, briskly.

Kim was focused on the rhythm of running, dodging puddles. "Yeah," she grunted, somewhat absent-mindedly.

"What was that all about?"

"Mmmmm… Boredom? Lonliness? Stress?"

"Maybe you ought to have your family send you some books and magazines to liven things up for you around here," he told her, conversationally. "Or else, next thing you know, you may be going after Father John." One side of his mouth was working upward, in defiance of his attempt to appear serious.

He found himself flat on his back in the road, the _whump_ of his body meeting the ground echoing in his ears. Kim had one heel planted in his groin where his right leg met the hip and she was gripping his left leg just above the knee, yanking. Hard. The rich supply of nerve endings that lived there was definitely awake now. She had blocked and flipped him, using the momentum of his pace as an aid. _Element of surprise,_ he thought, trying to save face with himself. (1)

She was looking for him to admit submission by patting twice on the ground or his body, Marine Corps Martial Arts Program-style. That was just not going to happen. Ignoring the pain she was inflicting on his hip and the pressure point on the inside of his knee—not to mention her heel's proximity to his privates—he hooked his left leg over her head, and pushed her to one side with it, breaking her grip. Quick, but every move controlled so as not to hurt her. Maybe because of that, he failed to achieve a submission hold. She spun away and danced out of his reach.

David jumped up. Kim was coiled on the balls of her feet, hands up and ready to defend herself. He had sixty pounds on her, easy. Nonetheless, her mouth was set, and her hazel eyes snapped and sparked at him. "C'mon, Marine," she invited. " '_One Mind; Any Weapon_.' "

"Hey, Irish," he said, mildly, hands up in the air and open, "Don't get your Irish up." He started walking up the road again, trying not to limp, and she dropped her hands and fell in beside him. "You might've had me if you had hit that nerve center a little harder," he lied. He made her out to be Brown Belt. Not kid stuff, but no match to the skills he'd gained since SOC and Treadstone. He realized with some satisfaction that he had kept his head, stayed in control. He had held on to David. Jason Bourne might have broken her arm, bloodied her appealing face.

Kim shrugged, suppressing a gloat, picking some mud from his shoe out of her ponytail. "Well, I didn't want to hurt you, with your bum knee and all. Just teach you some respect. Besides, it's been a while since I did any MCMAP."

"Two more miles," he said, and they started jogging again.

Kim looked over at him. "My tour with _MSF_ is up. They'll send me home next week."

"Oh?"

She noticed that a slight crease visited his forehead.

"Father John invited me to stay. I'm considering it."

"Oh."

Was that a little bit of a smile?

"There's still work to do here…" _And I'm not ready to say goodbye. _"Besides, who else is going to let me kick his ass just for fun?" She knew he could have pinned her in a millisecond, if he wanted; or worse, if he wasn't in control. She trusted that he didn't; that he was.

David Webb nodded, mouth a straight line. Noticed her looking at him, and felt the corner of his mouth trying to creep up again. They finished their six in companionable silence.

* * *

(1) If you don't believe that this is possible, search "Marine Corps Martial Arts" on youtube, or look at www(period)youtube(period)com/watch?veYl8QsR49cg&featurerelated.

Another youtube video at www(period)youtube(period)com/watch?vGl2Kdfula3I&featurerelated shows a slower breakdown of this classic MCMAP throw, but has a lot of cute editing to it.


	11. Chapter 11

Pamela Landy had nothing left to lose. Relieved of her caseload, grounded to her desk at Langley, her whistleblower status protecting her from discharge but not the distrust and disdain of her colleagues, she decided to go for broke. What was the worst that could happen? Marshall would ridicule her, she could take early retirement. Live out the rest of her days always looking over her shoulder, as outcast and alone as Jason Bourne. _David Webb, _she reminded herself.

"Pam?" Tom Cronin stuck his head in her office door, interrupting her negative thoughts. Poor Tom, short-roped to her; in the middle of her fight and paying for it with his career, too. But he never complained. If he had rebukes, she never heard them. "Marshall's ready for you."

Two hours later, she thought he was on the verge of agreeing.

"It's risky, Pam," he said, sucking his teeth in that bloodcurdling way that he had.

"It's riskier to leave those operatives deployed, Marty," she said persuasively. "The world knows we have black ops now; the world wants to know what we are doing to take responsibility. The underworld will use the existence of those agents to extort us; rogue states will use the knowledge to cover their own black ops. We can't let that happen. We have to bring them in, rehabilitate them."

"All right," said Marshall, looking like he'd just sucked on a very sour lemon. "Have your budget for this program on my desk by end of day tomorrow. We'll talk more then."

"Sir," Pam stood up and headed for the door. With her back to Marshall, she felt free to allow a small smile to visit her face.


	12. Chapter 12

"Do you have any idea what you're going to do?" Kim asked David in late March. They were painting the interior walls of the new cinder-block girls' dormitory. She noticed his mouth would fall open slightly, his tongue pressed behind his bottom teeth, when he was concentrating on a task.

He didn't answer for a moment. "No," he finally admitted. "I don't want to run, hide; that's no life for Drächen. I'd like to give her a normal childhood, but I don't know whether we can be safe." He wasn't happy that he didn't have a plan. Jason Bourne would have had a plan by now.

"Can you imagine ever feeling safe?" Kim asked him

"Well, there's safe, and then there's safe," David said. "There was a kill order on me back in January. Nicky Parsons, too. That is definitely, actively unsafe."

Kim looked up from her paintbrush. David saw she had paint on her face and absent-mindedly brushed at it with his fingertips, like he might pick dried food off of Drächen's face. It was dry, not budging; he let it be.

"Nicky?" Kim asked, fingers going to the paint on her cheek, worrying at it.

"I was at the Madrid office, back in January, looking for clues to my identity. Nicky was posted there. She helped me, almost got herself killed."

"Where is Nicky now?" Kim asked.

"I put her on a bus in Tangiers."

David painted a few strokes on the wall, glanced at Kim.

"She said things— We were involved in Paris, when we both worked for Treadstone." The weight of it was crushing: another person's life ruined because of him.

"Do you remember any kind of relationship in Paris?"

David shook his head, agonized.

"It seems to me that it would be awfully difficult for a Treadstone op and a logistics coordinator to conduct a personal relationship. Risky, too…"

David shrugged. He didn't know.

Kim pressed on. "Nicky had free choice, didn't she? If you two were involved, and then when she offered to help you? And nobody forced her to keep accepting new posts." Her voice had become judgmental, and he looked up, surprised.

"What are you saying?" His eyes were questioning, his brow knit; trying to understand.

"She didn't have to help you, David; she chose to. She chose to work for the Company of her own free will, and kept working there after Treadstone, after Berlin. She was responsible for monitoring your health?"

He nodded.

"She had your file, then, beginning to end. She had the training notes, maybe tapes. She had all the details on all the missions; she KNEW what was going on all along. She supported an operation that perpetrated torture on American servicemen." Kim was indignant. "I question the motivations and judgment of someone who worked for Treadstone for YEARS, by choice. Especially if she did have a relationship with you outside the operation. If that did happen… Well, for all you know, she got a thrill from banging a killer." Her face was tight and angry, flushed as red as it ever was at the four mile mark. Kim had met a few associates of that ilk during her time at CIA, though she didn't know whether Nicky was one of them. Her interactions with Nicky in Berlin had been cordial, professional. Nicky had shown her some shortcuts for maneuvering through the UNIX-based database mainframed out of Langley.

David flinched, but Kim was so worked up she hardly noticed.

"I had a choice," he said, looking at her with guarded eyes.

"When you walked in the door, yes. But after the training you received, your choices were narrowed considerably. And still, despite all that, you risked your life to make different choices. You practically committed suicide, to get out, to make amends. Three times." She knew most of the facts of his recent life as well as he did by now.

Kim found herself on the verge of tears, imagining David involved in an affair with someone who could remain committed to Central Intelligence after seeing firsthand what had been done to him and the other Treadstone agents. "How could she live with herself?"

David didn't know what to make of her reaction. She saw his puzzlement, and felt some of her own, too. _What are you doing this for, Kim?_

She tried to reel herself in. "All I'm saying is, she is not your responsibility any more, if she ever was… Your responsibility is to your little girl first now, and creating a stable life for her."

"I haven't figured out how, yet," David said.

They painted for a few minutes, silent. "I know Pam Landy's secure fax number," she told him. "We could find out how committed she is to helping you."

* * *

They worked a week, a little more, to come up with a plan that they felt would both work and be secure. It would mean more exposure than David had ever considered subjecting himself or his daughter to in the past. He could feel himself winding tighter with every day of planning. As launch day approached, he flowed into a state of hyper-vigilance, Jason Bourne always looking over his shoulder. He welcomed Bourne. Only Bourne had a chance at keeping them all alive. He drilled Kim on every move, every detail, every contingency. She cataloged it all, could fire it back at will, and tried to fill in details where she could.

"She'll probably send Tom Cronin to meet you." They were conferencing in his room late into the night, almost every night.

"You know him, right?" David was pacing the short length of the room, electric with tension. Drächen and Indali were curled up together in Drächen's cot.

"He was involved with most of my operations, over two years," she answered.

"You know when he's lying?"

"Mmm, sometimes. You don't get where he's gotten without being really good at bullshit. The more neutral he is, the less comfortable he is." Kim thought of something else. "Do you trust Landy?"

David pondered. She had put her neck on the line for him. He remembered her words: _This isn't who we are._ It wasn't who she wanted to be, anyway. He licked his lips, chewing on the bottom one absent-mindedly, nodded.

"He's always been totally committed to her. He wouldn't make a move that she doesn't know about and approve."

He relaxed a bit. David was visible again.

It seemed like a good moment to talk to him about something else that was on her mind. "I've been thinking a lot about Indali," she told him. "What's going to happen to her, once we're gone?"

"I don't know," he said, looking across the room to where the orphan lay, curled up with his daughter. "I've thought about it." _Obsessed about it._

"Father John says she'll get a 8th grade education here at the orphanage; if she's lucky, she'll work in a shop or a call center for the rest of her life… She has so much more potential than that. All the children do, really. But this one has just really stolen my heart." Kim sighed. She wished she could take all of them. "I want to adopt her."

David looked at her. "Really? You can do that?"

"Sure." Kim's face was open, excited. "I love her. I think she can be happy with me, really thrive…"

"You're a woman of action, Irish." _And love._ There was admiration in his eyes.

Kim nodded, pleased. And not only by the prospect of motherhood.


	13. Chapter 13

There was one final preparation David could not make on his own. "I really need a haircut," he told Kim, the night before launch. His hair had not been this long in years, maybe ever. "I hate to walk into a barbershop to get so drastic a change; it would be conspicuous."

Kim's mouth straightened into a line as she pressed her lips together. His hair _was_ long; curling around his ears. "I can cut it," she said, reluctantly. "I've been cutting my dad's hair since I was thirteen. I know what you military types like."

"Why didn't you say something sooner?" he wanted to know. "I'm looking like a hippie here."

"I don't want to be cutting everyone's hair in the entire orphanage," she said. "I'll only do it if you tell everyone you cut it yourself." This was so foolish a thought that he laughed, despite his pre-mission tension. Then agreed.

She went to her room, checked on the sleeping Indali, and then returned to his, armed with her headlamp, a pair of surgical scissors and a comb. While Drächen slept, she worked away, slowly and carefully. It had been a few years since she had done this, after all.

Finally, she stepped back from him half a step, and said, "That's as high and tight as you're going to get from me with these scissors." She put the scissors down to wipe sweat from her hand. It was hot and sticky even at night, now.

There was no mirror. He felt it over a bit, said, "It feels right."

"I got it a little too close over here," she said apologetically, feeling with her fingertips, and then taking his hand and putting it on the spot.

"It's fine," he said. "Thanks." Her hand was on his, fingertips still brushing the soft, short hair. Kim knew she was acting recklessly, and she didn't care. He was leaving, and she realized how much she was going to miss him. How much she didn't want to be friends any more. How ready she was to love him: the man trying to find his way, the father trying to do right by his child. He glanced up at her, his hand still in hers, shifted on the stool.

"Any time," Kim said, her voice all honey and gravel, her hand on his head creating a tingle. He nodded, smiled fleetingly, looking at her face. Her return gaze was unbending. She released his hand, ran hers down the back of his neck. Ran it back up again, riffling the short, soft hair against the grain.

His nerve endings jumped to life under her touch. He could smell iodine on her, and hand sanitizer, and a trace of roses. Scared, wanting this, he felt his arms encircle her, his cheek against the smooth, cool linen covering her midriff. He pulled her to sit on his knees, her legs around his, her mouth opening as he pushed his hands up through her hair to hold her head. Feeling her commitment to this moment, bending to her conviction and his own desire, he pulled off her kurta and camisole, threw his own t-shirt on the floor on top of them.

David's hands roamed up Kim's sinewy back and over her shoulders as they kissed. He traced the fine bones emanating from her sternum with his fingertips, then pressed his hands flat against the softness of her compact breasts. Sighing into his mouth, she stroked his face, his ears, his neck, lightly touched the scar on his side, those on his back. Inched forward in his lap until they were bonded from hip to shoulder, arms wrapped around each other tightly, groaning as skin met skin. Uncertainty fading, David stood and carried Kim to his cot, her arms and legs locked around his shoulders and waist. He set her down gently on the cot. Consigning himself.

"This thing's pretty narrow," she said, looking down at her perch.

"We'll make it work," he said, leaning over her. "We can't be the first two Marines to have had this idea…"

She started giggling, and couldn't stop. It was interfering with his kisses, so he stopped, eyeing her self-consciously. "What?"

"Surely you don't mean, 'Don't ask, don't tell?' " She exploded in a fit of guffaws. Neither of them saw Indali in the hallway, peeking through the cracked door, or noticed as she turned and ran silently back to the room she shared with Kim.

"Here's what I mean," he said, all seriousness, kissing the laughter away from her as he removed the rest of her clothes. She surrendered to his ministrations: exploratory, rapt, and responsive to her sighs and gasps, as she trailed one hand down his tightly muscled torso to the button on his pants. He undid them and left them on the floor with his undershorts, lowering himself carefully over her on the protesting cot. She reached for him, caressing, shifting to meet him.

David had the sensation that he was falling, hurtling headlong into the unknown. At the very end of his trajectory was Kim, hair spread out around her head like a halo, lips parted slightly and curling up at the corners, looking up at him from under heavy-lidded eyes.

It was a soft landing.

Sleep was another matter entirely… Scrunching together on the skinny cot in the torpid heat was not comfortable, but Kim had no complaints. David's hands moved slowly through her hair, stroking her head and neck soothingly. She was almost out when he whispered to her.

"Would you take Drächen, if I… Will you take her—keep her, I mean?" _I know you love her._

Kim touched his face, kissed his neck, tasting dried sweat. "Yes, I'll take her. There's just one condition."

"What condition?" He craned his neck back to look at her, mouth slightly open, brow wrinkled.

"I don't need to sleep," she whispered, her voice thick and sweet as caramel. She threw one leg over his body, pushing herself upright with her hands on his shoulders. "Do you?" She gave a short laugh as she discovered evidence that one part of him, anyway, did not. He laughed a little bit himself—at the effect she had on him: enlivening; resurrective—and pulled her to his chest to kiss her lucent face.


	14. Chapter 14

"Mama, Mama!" Drächen was awake, crying.

Kim was on her feet, walking across the room to pick up her kurta and pull it on, reaching Drächen before David even sat up. There had been a few moments of sleep, anyway. David sank back down to lie on the cot again, tranquil, as Kim put a hand on Drächen's back and then picked her up to rock in her arms. She swayed back and forth and began to sing, in her low, throaty voice:

_Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf.  
Der Vater hüt't die Schaf.  
Die Mutter schüttelt's Bäumelein,  
Da fällt herab ein Träumelein.  
Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf!  
Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf!_ (1)

The sound of the familiar lullaby being sung to his child by someone other than Marie gutted David cleanly in an instant. He closed his eyes, tried not to hear Marie's higher, smoother voice; her native German rolling off her tongue more fluently than it could off Kim's. It wasn't fair that Drächen couldn't hear her mother's voice, would never again feel her mother's embrace.

Kim's back was to him as she held the young child's gaze with her own, willing the little one back to sleep. She continued humming, rocking gently on her feet until the little girl's eyes closed. Pale light was coming through the window as she set Drächen down in her cot, still humming the tune. David was rubbing his face as she turned to him, whispering, "She never frets when Indali is with her. I wonder where Indali is…" Registering his face, his mood, she froze. Searching for what was wrong.

He sat up and started sorting out the clothing, pulling his on.

"Sorry she woke you," he said.

"I'm not," she answered. "I prefer saying goodbye."

David stood up and started going through his pack. Kim felt a sick tug in her belly. Maybe this had been too much to risk, for both of them.

"That song," he said, looking in his pack. "The one you sang to her; how do you know that song?"

"My Oma—my mother's mother—is German. She has sung that song to all of her children, her grandchildren, and now her great-grandchildren. Nothing works better to put babies to sleep…"

He nodded, emotion threatening to burst through his impassive façade. He couldn't look at Kim. He put on his pack, cleared his throat. Pushing David aside, letting Jason take over. Kim sat on the cot next to Drächen, feeling all wrong.

One thing needed to be clarified, between friends, between Marines. "David," she said. "You can count on me to complete this for you, for Drächen. No matter what, that doesn't change."

He nodded, not looking at her. "You'll get the information via blind drop, like we practiced. If three days go by with no contact, you exfil. The money, the clean cards; you have them?"

"Yes." _I am not going to cry in front of him._

"Two more days to hear from me through alternate channels at your secondary location: a total of five days. No more. Less if something seems wrong to you. You have the passports to get home if that happens? The files? You're ready to go public to ensure your safety?"

Kim nodded.

"Your contact Stateside; he's completely trustworthy?"

"My cousin was an Army Ranger, and then Delta Force," she reminded him, patiently. "He understands clearances… He won't open anything unless he receives the Code Red from me, or no contact for three days." Kim was sure that John was a better choice than her father. Her Daddy would not be able to resist breaking the seals, out of concern for what she was into. If John never received the code, she knew he would hand her the sealed envelope, fat and heavy with secrets, next time she saw him, and never mention it again.

"David?" He was a million miles away. Looking at something that wasn't there in the room with them.

_A photograph: a Marine and a soldier. Identical, high and tight haircuts. Identical blue eyes. Identical last-name I.D patches: WEBB. Arms thrown around each other's shoulders in front of a sign: Welcome to Fort Benning U.S. Army Military Reservation. All bulging muscles and grins. Ready to rip your arm off and feed it to you for lunch._

He shook it off. Looked at her through Jason Bourne's eyes, double-checking his prior assessments. She was a patriot, he knew that. He also knew that her commitment to honor, and to two little girls, was greater than any other she had made. He was still certain she would do what had to be done to defend those passions.

He knelt to kiss Drächen, look at her small, perfect face—long lashes and Marie's mouth—one last time. _Marie, this is the last time I'll leave her, I promise. _Then he was gone.

Kim curled up with the child on the cot and let her tears roll. When Indali crept in and climbed aboard the cot, she wiped her face and folded the girl in her arms. These children needed her to be a grownup. Her mission was clear.

* * *

(1)Sleep, baby, sleep  
Your father tends the sheep  
Your mother shakes the dreamland tree  
And from it fall sweet dreams for thee  
Sleep, baby, sleep  
Sleep, baby, sleep  
_Traditional German lullaby_

* * *


	15. Chapter 15

David didn't stop moving until he reached Ankara. Staying one night in a small hotel whose only modern feature was the presence of a fax machine, he washed Kim off his skin under the cold water of the dank hallway shower. Sat up late into the night, cleaning his firearm repeatedly, until he remembered: _Rest is a weapon_. From where or whom that metaphor came, he didn't know. But he knew it had served him well in the past, before Treadstone. Glock under his pillow, he closed his eyes and slept, counting on his reflexes to warn him in case of threat.

He imagined he was reasonably safe, in any case; most with an interest assumed that he was dead. He was about to break that cover. Dangle himself to ensure Drächen's safety. In the morning, he sent his fax and traveled on to Istanbul. The op was in motion.

* * *

Tom Cronin shuffled through the pile of faxes sitting in the fax machine's output tray. Things had been slow since Pam Landy blew the whistle. The two of them weren't fired, but they weren't being given any new cases, either. Things might be heating up, though. Pam was going to a lot of meetings, all of a sudden, and her face had the ruminative look that always came over her at the beginning of an operation.

A single-page fax caught his eye. His eyes widened as he read. He grabbed his phone and dialed. "Pam, there's something here that you're gonna want to see. Right away."

"Thank you for pulling me out of that interminable budget meeting." Pam took the fax from Cronin and carefully read the page.

Cronin thought that maybe she would show some surprise, but twenty-five years of intelligence work had made her just about impervious to that emotion. She put the sheet of paper on her desk. Her mind was moving at the speed of light, yet each thought was discrete, like a snapshot. She had protocols in place already, after all. "Make contact," she told Tom, nodding at the fax. "We need to try to arrange a meet."

Cronin left the room and Landy picked up the phone. "Marty? Our new op is on the launchpad…"

* * *

"An exceptional day is coming," Kim told Drächen and Indali. "We are going away from here. We have to find a way to say goodbye to all our friends: Father John, Sister Angela, Keshav, Lakshmi, Kavya… When our journey is over, we will have new homes." She was careful not to fill in details that she didn't know and couldn't anticipate. Such as, whether they would all be together at the end of their journey.

The girls didn't comment; at first Kim couldn't tell whether any of it was sinking in. She went for repetition, telling the story as often as possible. Later that day, when Kim got to the part about finding a way to say goodbye, Drächen piped up: "Flowers. _Lose Blumen_." Motioning to Kim's pocket, she said urgently, "Pencil! _Notierst!_"

Kim obediently took out a pencil and notebook and wrote down, "Flowers," showing both girls. Drächen nodded in satisfaction. In the day that followed, either one of them might dart up to Kim and spout out another way to say goodbye: Drawings! Kisses! Candies! She would note it down, and they would dart away, satisfied.

The eve of their departure, two days after David left, found Kim and the children strewing the newly-completed dining hall with flowers for a going-away party, replete with candy, games, songs, a hand-drawn card (a Drächen-Indali collaboration) for each adult and child, and kisses for everybody. Sister Angela wiped her eyes discreetly. Drächen and Indali glowed with self-satisfaction, and went to sleep in each other's arms.

Kim crept out of her room, leaving the sleeping girls behind. She stopped to let Sister Angela know that she would be out for 30 minutes, asked her to keep an ear open in case the children woke up. Guilt over leaving Indali alone the night she cut David's hair still prickled her conscience. Five minutes later, she was knocking at the flap of Else Nystroem's tent. Fiftyish, trim, and cheerful, Else was a doctor on the MSF detail. She and Kim had teamed together for the three months of Kim's tour.

"Kim! What a surprise… Come in." Else kissed her two cheeks and welcomed her inside, offered her a camp stool.

"I'm leaving tomorrow; I wanted to say goodbye." Kim said, "And ask a favor."

"Anything, sweetheart! Oh, I'll miss you… What can I do for you?" Else leaned toward Kim, her blue eyes wide and warm.

"Could you prescribe me some birth control?" Kim felt her face grow hot, reminded herself that she was way past the age of majority, that she was acting responsibly. Planning for contingencies. One, much-hoped-for contingency.

Else feigned shock, eyes twinkling. "What? A nice, Catholic girl like you?" Swedish, agnostic, and libertine, she thought that guilt was a waste of time, but that didn't stop her from teasing those susceptible to it.

"This nice, Catholic girl prefers to go home to her parents in Iowa without a baby bump," said Kim.

Else's eyes flew open even wider, with glee. "Your bereaved single dad?" she asked, conspiratorially.

Kim nodded, blushing.

"_Brava!_" chortled Else. "He's not so bereaved any more?"

Kim was silent. Else cocked her head to one side, saying, "Kim… It's not so long since she died, hmmm? I hope you are taking care of yourself."

Kim shrugged. "I love him."

"Okay, Sweetheart, but can he love you? Because you deserve only love, you know." Kim would say no more, Else could see that. Best to give the girl the only kind of protection that she could provide in this situation. She shuffled through some papers on her cot, found her glasses and put them on. "Is there one you have used before that you like?"

"Tri-cyclen was always fine," said Kim.

"Any chance you could be pregnant now?" Else peered up at her over the top of the eyeglasses.

"No. I just started my period." _Thank God._ "If you can get them for me, I'll be able to start right away."

Else nodded. "You had your annual exam this year? Anything out of the ordinary? No? Okay, wait here."

When she returned from the dispensary ten minutes later, she had six circular packs of pills in a paper sack. "Plain brown wrapper," she said, dropping the bag in Kim's lap. "Use them in good health."

Kim stood and the two women walked toward the door.

"Where are you headed tomorrow?" asked Else.

"We're going on vacation in Europe before I take Indali home."

"I wish you every happiness; you and Indali, both." The doctor looked at her closely. "Take care of your heart, okay, Sweetie?"

"Thank you. Dear Else…" They embraced once again, and Kim hustled back to the slumbering children.

The next morning, she took the girls to Chennai. Installed in a small, comfortable apartment on Elliot's Beach, they waited. Not knowing what the future might hold, Kim was grateful for every moment that the two girls could be together.

Vigilant for anything out of the ordinary that could indicate that they were being watched, followed, she checked and double-checked her security precautions. She had everything she had learned over two years with Pam Landy, and all of David's advice—Jason Bourne's advice—helping her in that regard. A heightened consciousness became as familiar as the heft of the M11 that she carried with her at all times.

She tried to stay in the present, though the pills and her daily consumption of them made avoiding all anticipation somewhat difficult. If she succeeded in that area at all, it was never at night. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw David's face, heard his voice: working at the orphanage, playing with the girls. Eyes gray and stark when he gutted out the memories; clear and blue when he held his daughter or Indali, reading to them, singing them to sleep. So blue when he kissed her, hard and sweet and good. It was in remembering this that she allowed herself to wish for her own happiness, along with David's, Drächen's and Indali's. Hoping for an intersection of the four.

The dead drop delivered communications, almost daily. Nothing but terse facts. According to them, the op was proceeding positively. Kim made her responses just as factual: there was no indication they had been made, no indication that anyone was looking. The last thing either of them needed right now was distractions.


	16. Chapter 16

Tom Cronin stood on a dusty street corner in Karachi's Saddar neighborhood. It had taken two weeks of negotiations to get there. Nine of those fourteen days spent in Pakistan, responding to instructions that all turned out to be tests. Would Cronin come alone? He would. Would a Rapid Response Team be sent if Cronin was detained? It would not. Would he tail Bourne when given the opportunity? He would not. Cronin wondered whether today would be the day that they would actually have a meeting, make some headway. If Bourne wanted to harm him, he certainly could have by now. The big question was: why was Bourne reaching out? What would make him want to come home now? Even Landy hadn't been able to figure it out.

He dropped an empty soda can in the gutter. Was rewarded by the twitter of his cell phone ringing. He answered immediately. He had to admit that he had some disquiet about meeting Jason Bourne face to face, and without his sidearm. Landy had insisted: go in light. Not that a handgun would be enough help him, judging by what they had seen while tracking Bourne back in the winter. Pam had pointed this out to him, just before he left. _Thanks for the reassurance…_

"Tom Cronin," he said into the cell phone.

"Cross the street and look on the window sill of the shop there."

Cronin started walking. There was a cell phone sitting on the sill.

"Hang up your phone and use the one you see in front of you. Pull the one you're talking on now apart, and chuck the battery in the street."

Cronin did as he was told. In his mind's eye, he saw his GPS location signal go dead on a computer screen in the hub at Langley. The new phone rang in his hand.

"There's a bus approaching the stop on the corner. Get on it." Cronin caught the bus, paid the fare. Scanning his fellow passengers, he did not see Jason Bourne. Pam may call the man David Webb now, but to Cronin the myth was still intact, and Bourne he remained.

He rode several miles before the phone twittered again. "Get off at the next stop. There's a café 10 meters north of the bus stop. Go in and wait for instructions."

When Cronin stepped inside, he saw Bourne immediately, seated at the rearmost table, in a seat that afforded him a view of the entire café, including the back door and the hallway to the restroom. Bourne's eyes were alert, never still. His face did not change as Cronin met them with his own. Cronin walked slowly to the table, sat down.

The two men nodded at each other.

"You're not going to search me?" Cronin asked.

"You're not armed," replied Bourne. Cronin's body language hadn't stopped screaming that fact since he stepped into the street and tossed the soda can.

Not pausing to ponder what his tell had been, Cronin got down to brass tacks. "As we've already confirmed, the kill orders on Jason Bourne and Nicky Parsons have been rescinded. Blackbriar is being dismantled and the operatives brought in for debriefing and re-integration."

"Where does that put David Webb?" Treadstone had been dismantled, too, once upon a time.

"David Webb is a decorated Marine, currently residing abroad. The Agency does not keep track of private citizens such as David Webb." Cronin felt like an ass, delivering that line. His face and body language were completely neutral.

"And Jason Bourne?"

"The Agency has no comment on Jason Bourne pending internal investigation."

David's mind sparked and turned over, moving geometrically, trigonometrically. CIA was apparently unaware of Drächen's existence; every communication he had received from Kim indicated no surveillance. He could melt away after this meeting; just disappear, taking Drächen with him. Fade into the Third World somewhere, never to surface…

Someone always came looking for Jason Bourne, though.

_Would she better off without you? _asked Jason. Kim could take her home to Iowa, leaving him to disappear forever, alone. Kim would be an excellent mother to her; Drächen would have a large and loving family.

He heard Kim's voice: _She has what she needs most if she has you…_ Marie's words the day he found them on Mykonos: _You're her one and only father. The one perfect father for her._ His own vow when he began this mission: _This is the last time I'll leave her._

David could not, would not, give up his daughter again. There was that picture, too, that soldier. His brother. He wanted to find him. And Kim, Indali... He wanted a shot at sorting it all out; he wanted a shot at a life. He would have to find another way.

The simplicity of Landy's plan appealed. He would need backup, though, for the day that someone at the Company would decide that he owed them something. His mind skipped over the training, and put that on the list of possibles. Perhaps two seconds had passed. He nodded at Cronin. "Go on."

"We are prepared to issue a U.S. passport in your legal name. I'll accompany you to the States, after which you will be free to do what you like, go where you want, within the limits of the law. When you settle, you'll be free to contact the Marine Corps about your pay and retirement benefits. Since you have been abroad, you have accrued substantial back pay."

"And?" _What do you want in exchange?_

"Pamela Landy asked me to extend her invitation to debriefing at Quantico. But, that's all it is, an invitation." Cronin looked eager.

Smart of Landy, to offer Quantico to a Marine. He had logged some time there already, at The Basic School for officer training; every Marine officer did. He would still turn down the invitation.

He decided to change the subject. "Do you know where Nicky Parsons is?"

"Do you?" Cronin's face became more eager.

"No."

Cronin looked him in the eye, searching, then nodded. He had never interviewed anyone harder to read. He had one last item. He pulled a few pieces of paper out of his case and held them with the air of someone who might need them for reference.

"We've located the remains of Marie Kreutz, and they are now being held at the morgue in Margau, India. The ID was confirmed via dental records." Cronin handed over an autopsy report. David glanced at it. There were photographs of a body on a slab. He caught a glimpse of long hair turning green-grey and melting, blue-tinged flesh. He shoved the folder back across the table towards Cronin. "Pamela Landy has arranged for their return to Germany. We can notify her brother, if you like. Her grandmother died last year."

Kim's techniques were second nature now, and David breathed deeply to quiet the noise in his head, the roiling in his gut.

"We have access to Osprey and C-40 jet aircraft off the _USS Carl Vinson_ in the Persian Gulf for transport," Cronin went on. "The funeral is scheduled for next Saturday, April 23rd, in Hanover."

David sat still, thinking. This was a contingency that he had not anticipated. Bourne gave him a plan. He didn't move, continued to look Cronin square in the eye. "Osprey is fine for the first leg. I want a USMC, 2nd Air Wing detail from the _Vinson_. They will be in my command, no limits. I'll need a list of refueling sites to plan my coordinates."

He didn't want the C-40: _Marie would hate that, _he thought.

_And the crew and Cronin could bail, leave you to crash. Or just toss you out,_ Bourne chimed in_. _

"Commercial flights, Chennai to Hanover. I will meet you at Chennai International on April twenty-first with my cargo, and my party. We'll need four seats; five including you. No one from my party will be searched. No one from my party will surrender sidearms." He sat back.

Cronin sputtered, "What you're asking is unprecedented." _His party? Did he have some kind of personal army?_ Cronin was genuinely incredulous, but he would say yes. Landy's instructions had been clear. Let her convince the Indian authorities to allow firearms aboard a commercial flight.

David was impassive. Everything about this situation was unprecedented. Landy wanted to do something for him; this was what he wanted.

"I'll notify Martin Kreutz," he added, standing to go. "Wait here for no less than 15 minutes before you leave. I'll call your new phone tomorrow for your answer."


	17. Chapter 17

David stopped the jeep at the agreed-upon spot, got out with Father John. They waited, silent. The priest had met him in Hyderabad on short notice, as David had known he would. As usual, Father John projected the calm air of one who has seen all and accepts all. David scanned the horizon. At precisely the appointed minute, the MV-22 Osprey appeared, and set down on a bare patch of ground 300 meters away from them. The downdraft threatened to knock the cleric off his feet, and David put a steadying hand on one black-clad shoulder, watching, bracing himself and the Father against the dust raised by the rotor.

A Marine jumped out of the aircraft and jogged over to them. "Second Lieutenant Wiatrek, 2nd Air Wing, U.S. Marine Corps, at your service, sir," he shouted over the engine noise, snapping to attention and saluting.

David felt himself straighten to attention automatically, deliver a crisp salute in return. "Captain David Webb, USMC," he replied. "This is Father John."

"Sir." The Second Lieutenant took the cleric's arm and headed for the aircraft. David followed close behind, one hand on Wiatrek's back, per protocol. They boarded, strapped in—Father John with Wiatrek's help—and the vessel took off. Handed a communications headset by Wiatrek, David had the pilot confirm his coordinates. All was a check. He sat back for the ride, lulled by the familiar sound of rotor blades overhead.

_The AH-1W Super Cobra is small and light, no cargo room inside. Seated on benches mounted on the outside of the bird are six heavily armed men, masked and goggled against the stinging cloud of sand raised on takeoff from Mogadishu Beach. Conveyed over the ruins of Mogadishu to the eye of the hurricane that has become _The Battle of Mogadishu/The Day of the Rangers_, they are a unit with no name, made up of warriors with no names. They answer to code names: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot. They are not even Marines, or Delta Force or SEALS any more; the DOD would deny their existence, as it has denied the existence of this unit throughout history. Few even dare utter its code name: Medusa. Their uniforms lack last-name ID. Their dog tags are in drawers, on dressers, back Stateside. Given an average of 8 hours to muster, their first order of drill is always to divest themselves of identification._

"_Hey Delta, is it true?" Echo shouts over the rotor noise. David Webb, Delta for six months now, looks over. "They left their night vision at base? Their bayonets?"_

_Delta nods. "Canteens, too. Orders." Unprepared for contingencies, the elite U.S. Army forces on the ground in Mogadishu—Rangers and Delta Force—are pinned down, getting massacred, in what has stretched into a night-time battle. _

"_Poor bastards," mutters Echo. Delta ignores him. He doesn't want to consider what could be happening on the ground. His brother is with the 75__th__ Ranger Regiment out of Fort Benning. Chances are, Gordon is down there, somewhere.  
_

_The unit sits grim and silent, bayonets fixed, night vision goggles in position on every helmet, hydration systems on every back. Conversation is a drain of energy under these conditions. From what Delta can see, the ten months since his MSOC detail exfilled Mogadishu have only brought more devastation to the formerly graceful seaport city. When his unit pulled out last January, he would have predicted that to be impossible. He had been naïve then, about many things. _

_The aircraft is hovering 70 feet above a dark street as Alpha and Delta fix their ropes. They jump two at a time, fastroping down to the ground while their brethren provide cover, then returning the favor. When all are on the ground, they immediately fan out. Tonight they will operate solo and bug out solo._

_The stink of rotting garbage and flesh is accented by the acrid smoke of tire-fueled bonfires. Bodies litter the streets, women and children among the armed male casualties. _How did food aid turn into this? _Delta wonders._ _Light arms fire and explosions punctuate the chaos._

_His mission is to find and recover any stranded American servicemen. His methods: the arsenal he carries on his person and in his mind. His sharpest implement is instinct. _

_Led by that tool up a wall of wrecked vehicles stacked three high and ten wide, he comes upon a tableau imported straight from Hell. Three Army Rangers, hands bound, are on their knees, held at gunpoint by two enemy combatants. All five backs are to Delta as he surveys the unfolding horror. One of the unfriendlies has a sidearm drawn and Delta can see that the other has one tucked in the back of his waistband._

_Perched on top of the wall of junkers, he has a clear shot. In a heartbeat, he has his rifle stock tight against his shoulder, the shooter's head in his crosshairs. Sparks flying around his head, raised by small arms fire, tear his attention away. He loses sight of his countrymen as he searches for his assailant through his scope. Dispatching the source of the crossfire with a single shot, he looks back to his original objective. _

_One Ranger is down now. The executioner is just pulling his trigger again, inches from the second Ranger's head. Cursing bitterly, Delta lines up his shot. The gunman falls on top of his victim._

_The second Somali combatant draws his firearm now, intent on finishing off the third Ranger. Delta sights through the scope, squeezes the trigger, showering the kneeling Ranger with blood and gray matter._

_The young soldier rolls on the ground, his knees pressed to his face, screaming in terror. Delta breaks cover, runs to the man and pushes him onto his back, seeing a gore-smeared face, streaked with tears running from blue eyes, same as his own. Looking closer, he reads the man's last name from the left breast of his uniform: Webb. Recognizes his brother's face through the ashen mask of shock that has fallen over it. _

"_Gord?" he barks. "Gord! Can you get up? You have to get up!" As his brother looks at him with no acknowledgement, the screaming dissolves into uncontrollable sobs. _Goddamn it!_ If he would get up, they could recover the two bodies. _No Man Left Behind _is in Delta's blood, it's his creed._

_Bullets are sailing by now, so close that he can feel currents of air off them as they push past. He has to get the living to safety. Delta digs in his lumbar pack, pulls out a self-injector of Nembutal and sticks it in Gordon's exposed neck. Bends down and hoists the slackening body over one shoulder. Runs like hell to an upside-down van, the missing windshield providing access to a mini bunker._

_Moving fast, he pulls out an IV bag of dextrose fluids, jabbing the needle in the vein of Gordon's limp arm. Injects Levophed to counteract the affects of shock, and safeguard against the Nembutal doing its job too well. Props the bag up on the dash. Reloads all his weapons, pulling grenades and sidearm off the unconscious Ranger and adding them to his arsenal. Crouches between the inert form and the wilderness outside the van, night-vision on, rifle at the ready. _

_He is still at his post when the mob comes for the bodies at dawn. Intent on roping the dead soldiers by the ankles to the bumper of their Jeep, they don't notice the two brothers hidden in the rubble. Delta does not risk defending the bodies. He realizes that his patient is conscious when he hears weeping as the Jeep pulls away, dragging the remains of two young Army Rangers behind it. He turns away from the grim scene outside to check the survivor's vital signs._

"_Dave?" Gordon is lucid now. Lucid and disbelieving. "What are you doing here?"_

"_I'm not here," says Delta. "I'm going to get you out."_

The motor's change in pitch as the Osprey went from forward flight to hovering snapped David out of his waking dream. They were touching down at Margau.


	18. Chapter 18

David, Father John and Second Lieutenant Wiatrek were shown immediately to the room where Marie's remains lay waiting. Wiatrek dabbed some Vick's Vaporub under his nose, offered the small jar to David. David shook his head and the Second Lieutenant put the jar away, then took up a post outside the door while David and Father John walked through the doorway. They paused just inside. There was a body bag on a table, a coffin on another table. A few chairs.

Father John went immediately to the body bag and began administering the Last Rites. David waited, eyes averted. What he had glimpsed in the photographs was already too much; he did not need to see any more of what six months of death had done to Marie.

The priest finished, zipped the body bag, and left the room, gripping David's shoulder briefly on his way out. He would rest overnight at a nearby boardinghouse. The remainder of their journey was too long to begin this day.

David placed a chair close to the table with the body bag on it. He had no intention of leaving Marie alone. For maybe only the third time in half a year, he allowed his mind to focus solely on her: his love, his light. His face breaking up, he slumped forward, elbows on his knees, forehead resting on the table next to the body bag that shrouded her corpse.

_Marie, I'm so sorry. I thought I could keep you safe, but I couldn't. I'm sorry… _

–_You came back for me._

He felt her tender hand on his shoulder. He didn't need to look to see her; she was always there.

_I know who I am now, Marie. I had choices, and my choices led to this, for you, for me, for Drächen… _

–_We've always known who you are, Drächen and I. You came back—for us, for her, for me. We both love you so much… You're finding other choices; other people will have a chance to know you now._

_I'm afraid of the things Jason did, of who Jason was, but it was Jason that you loved… I don't want to let him go if it means letting you go._

–_Your fear will point you to your courage, my love. What you need of Jason will always be inside of you. You have a constant reminder of our love: you have Drächen. Hold on to that; hold on to her._

_She's so beautiful, Marie. I wish you could see her. She finds magic everywhere, creates beauty out of everything._

–_So many people love her; only love is waiting for her… I know you'll do what's right by our baby. _

He smelled her now: vanilla and sandalwood and orange. Tasted the sweetness of her, like sugar on his tongue. It was almost unbearable. He didn't want it to end.

_Christ, I miss you._

_-There's no end to my love. Hold on to that. Even as time passes, even as you turn to new love. No end…_

There was a tap on the door. David raised his head blearily from the edge of the table, rubbing the dried tears from his eyes. Wiatrek was there with the pilot and co-pilot from the Osprey. "Ready, Sir?" It was the god-awful hour that Marines call morning.

David stood up, and the detail came in. The four men lifted the body bag gently into the coffin, and David closed the lid, rested his hands on the polished wood for a long moment as the other Marines stood back, patient, respectful. The detail was preparing to convey the coffin to the waiting helicopter when an attendant came in with three ziplock bags. The large one held Marie's mildewed clothing, and David waved it away. The medium one, with a paperback book inside, and the small one, containing her barrettes and jewelry, he took.

"Marines, forward march!" The detail moved out, slowly, to the helicopter. The longest march of David's life.

While the crew was busy with their preflight, David took out the small ziplock, emptied it into his hand. Six little hairclips of the variety Marie favored: butterflies, stars, flowers. Three shell bracelets, the leather lacing hardened from their long submersion. Two small charms on delicate chains: an angel with a helmet and a sword, and a woman with many heads and arms. Marie collected so many little trinkets, necklaces, barrettes; he had never particularly noticed these before.

He showed them to Father John. "Do you know what these are?"

"Ah, religious medals," said the cleric, "St. Michael, the Archangel. Patron Saint of warriors. His sword is the Sword of Truth. And this is Quan Yin, a Buddhist bodhisattva, or enlightened one. Bodhisattva of compassion. Her name means 'Hearing the Cries of the World.' They were hers?"

David didn't answer; it was time to go. He jammed everything but the medals in his pockets, and stood back to let Father John board ahead of him, a steadying hand on the priest's back. He strapped in, gave the coordinates of their next landing to the crew. He turned the charms over in his hand as the Osprey took off.

"Where did you do Basic, Sir?"

David started. It was Wiatrek, leaning in to be heard over the noise of the aircraft. Bored and ready to shoot the breeze. Maybe wanting to help a fellow Marine lighten up.

"RTD, San Diego."

"No shit. Me, too. Who was your DI?"

"Bremerton."

"Luthringer. Man, I can still hear him, as if it were yesterday. He could use the f-word as a verb, a noun, an adjective, and an adverb, all in the same sentence."

David nodded; that skill was probably a basic requirement for becoming a Drill Instructor.

"Luthringer used to say '_Recruits, are you afraid?'_ What would you have said to that?"

David answered, "Sir, no sir!" Smiling a tight smile, playing along.

"That's what we said! GodDAMN, was he up our asses over that. _'If you aren't afraid, how you gonna locate your courage? Your fear will point you to your courage, and don't you forget it! Now give me push-ups!' "_

Wiatrek didn't notice Webb's smile fade, his mouth fall open slightly. David cast a look at Marie's coffin, scrubbed his face with the fist that held the two medals, the warrior and the compassionate one. _No end,_ _Marie…_


	19. Chapter 19

_Author's Note: Well, we are almost at the end of this book. Thanks, everyone who has read thus far. I love your comments, and the discussions we have been having, through the review list and by private message. Really, you all deserve a medal for coming down this road with David and an OC. To anyone who has found even one thing to like about Kim, bless you. Otherwise, thanks for checking in on this metamorphosing David: his past and his future.  
_

_Only three more chapters to go. Press on, Esteemed Reader.  
_

* * *

The Osprey set down at Chennai International, and David, Father John and the Marine detail jumped out.

Kim, Indali, and Drächen stepped out of a hangar. The little girls ran, towing Kim behind by her two hands. They jumped into David's arms, instigating a giant, four-way hug. Kim let herself press her face against his chest for just a moment, looked up into his pained, smiling face. His eyes were closed, his cheeks framed by the silky hair of two little heads.

Turning away, Kim felt David slip something into the pocket of her hoodie, realized it was a full magazine for her Sig. Touch told her that the bullets were hollowpoints; if she needed to fire inside the aircraft, they would not breach the bulkheads and cause loss of cabin pressure. She saw Cronin approaching, removed her hand from her pocket. Noted his shock at seeing her and two small children; his face betraying him for only a moment before detachment was carefully re-assumed. A moment later, it was her turn to feel surprise: a USMC Honor Guard was with him, and snapped to attention. She searched Cronin's face: composed, neutral.

A USMC Officer emerged from a terminal building and approached. Intercepted briefly by Cronin, he nodded as the CIA man said a few words in his ear, and then approached them. David and Kim both involuntarily straightened up into attention with a salute, as did the honor guard. Indali clung to Kim's left hand, her shy eyes fearful of the uniformed men. Drächen, safe in David's left arm, peered around, then held her left hand up to her forehead in her own salute.

"Good afternoon. I'm Major General Dennis J. Hejlik, Commander of Marine Corps Special Operations Command. On behalf of the United States Marine Corps: Marines, stand down!" The Commander saluted, releasing them.

Kim and David responded automatically, barking, "Aye, aye, sir!" as they released the salute.

They took one long step back in unison, turned a crackling 180 degrees, held themselves at attention another moment, and then relaxed. They looked at each other, a little self-conscious. _Once a Marine…_

The Commander approached, hand held out to Kim. Indali, left behind when Kim stood down, ran to hide behind her, clinging to her leg.

"Welcome, Marine," he said to her, as they shook hands.

"Thank you, Sir!" Kim shouted in her best Basic Training voice.

"And who is this?" he asked, surprising her by kneeling on one knee to look Indali in the eye.

"My daughter, Sir: Indali Shanti Ramsey."

"I'm pleased to meet you, Young Lady," said the Commander, taking Indali's hand to shake it. She beamed at his gentle eyes before burying her face once again in Kim's leg.

The colonel rose and produced a manila envelope, tipping something out of it into the palm of his hand. "Hello, Little Bit," he said to Drächen.

"I believe these are yours, Marine," he addressed David, handing the something over. Dog tags. Webb, David. His social. O+. Catholic. David took them, blinking. "Sir. Thank you, Sir," he said, handing the tags to the little girl, accepting the Commander's handshake.

Cronin checked his watch, nodded at them.

"Did you get the phone?" David asked Kim.

She pulled a prepaid satellite phone out of her pack, powered it on. "Take a picture of us?" Kim requested of Father John. "Just line us up in the window, and press here."

David and Kim squeezed together with the children. Nobody said, "Cheese."

Taking the phone, Kim just barely glanced at the picture. They were each identifiable; that was enough. She dialed up the distribution list that she had already set up, typed in a message, attached the photo, and pressed send. "Now my friends and family can see my new daughter," she said, volubly, for Cronin's benefit, hugging Indali. _Especially my cousin, John. And Aunt Pamela Landy. Uncle Charles Gibson...  
_

Father John swung each child up in a hug and accepted a kiss on the cheek and a squeeze from Kim.

"Thank you, Father John," said David, shaking his hand. "For everything."

"Go in peace," said Father John.

The long leg of their commercial flight, Mumbai to Berlin, was packed. Kim and the girls nodded off, exhausted by a morning that had begun at 4:00 a.m. When Kim opened her eyes, she saw the back of Cronin's head across the aisle and one row up. He was talking on the in-flight phone; no doubt a dozen junior case officers were scurrying to pull every fact they had on her and cross-reference them with Jason Bourne's file. Were agents being deployed to Iowa to surveil her family? It was out of her control. And it might well be the most boring assignment of their careers...

David was awake next to her, the two girls slumbering together in a single seat on her other side. In his right hand, David was gripping something tightly.

"What do you have there?" she asked.

He hesitated, eyes searching her face, then held his hand open to display the medals. "They were Marie's."

Her face lit up in recognition. "St. Michael… And is that Quan Yin? Interesting combination. Marie was polytheistic."

"Polytheistic, omnivorous, vibrant, acute… She 'contained multitudes.'"

Kim nodded. "Walt Whitman. The subject of my 400-level English thesis." _That was a long time ago…_

"Marie loved Whitman. So alive…" He quoted:

" '_I am large; I contain multitudes._' (1)

"She used to always say that when she contradicted herself or changed her mind. Her poetic excuse." He retrieved the water-damaged book from his pack, held it out to Kim: _The Complete Poems of Walt Whitman._ "This was in her effects."

Very gently, Kim opened the baggie and took the brittle volume out, turned the book over in her hands. "It looks like there's a marker here," she said, gingerly opening it. The emery board that Marie had used as a bookmark fell out, and David picked it up, held it.

The print was still legible. "I know this one," said Kim beginning to read from the marked page:

_"Whoever you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams,  
I fear these supposed realities are to melt from under your feet and hands,…_

Here the poem continued onto the next page, the pages stuck together. Kim closed the book and finished from memory, looking down at the stained and friable book cover.

_"Even now your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners, troubles, follies, costume, crimes, dissipate away from you,  
Your true Soul and Body appear before me…(2)"_

David batted at a tear rolling down his face.

"She truly believed in you," said Kim, her voice low and sandy. "She gave you so much…"

David's eyes flickered over Drächen, then down at the emery board in his hands. They sat for a moment in silence.

"She could eat anything?"

"Anything. The punkiest street food had no effect on her. Cast-iron stomach. One time, in Lisbon… "

His memories spilled forth, Kim witness to his eulogy. To the deep sorrow and broad smiles that the memories summoned. David was thinking that it might be worth getting through one to reach the other. Finding that maybe either one was fine, given the right company.

They sat silent again. Kim thought of something, said, "I always loved this one:

_The answer: That you are here, that life exists, and identity;  
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse._" (3)

He knew that one, too… From where? David's face was a mask of recognition and grief, his throat closing around yet unshed tears.

"It sounds like Marie lived every moment to the fullest," Kim went on.

"Yes."

"Wouldn't it be a fitting tribute to her, for you and Drächen to do the same?"

Tears were gliding down Kim's face now, and he wrapped his hand around her head to streak them away with his thumb, to pull her cheek to his shoulder. Eased an exhalation past the ache in his throat. Resting his hand on her head, he wondered, _Could I?_

When they touched down in Hanover, they were exhausted, naps notwithstanding. The little girls were hungry and cranky, tired of sitting still. They straggled out of the terminal and into the waiting Chrysler minivan, chilly in their India clothes, not equipped for the early spring temperatures so far north of the equator.

They were driven to a hotel near the church where the funeral was scheduled; Cronin made some adjustments to the reservation and they were shown into adjoining rooms. They opened the door between to allow Drächen and Indali the untrammeled joy of running back and forth between them.

Waiting for them were a black suit, plus tie, dress shirt, socks and shoes for David, black velvet dresses, tights and maryjanes for Indali and Drächen, and a black dress and accessories for Kim. The sizes were correct. Packages of new underwear, pajamas, toiletries. A note read _Courtesy of Marine Corps Community Services._

"You mean you have to take those cargos off?" Kim teased, gently.

David looked at her vacantly. He had worn the same cargo shorts and khakis—one pair of each—and two shirts for four months. Maybe he should just burn them.

"Put your dirty clothes in here," Kim said, holding up a canvas bag. "The card says that they do laundry in four hours." She stuffed in one last article of her own clothing from her pack and pitched it to him. He saw an array of little girls' clothes inside, as well.

He nodded, dropped the bag on the floor. Sat down on the bed, fully dressed. He was all in, and he knew it; the events of the past two days had assailed him emotionally, whether he liked to admit it or not. Time to let the mind and body catch up. _Rest is a weapon…_

"You have your M11?" he asked Kim. "Swap the clip."

Kim nodded, touched the grip where it stuck up out of the back of her waistband under her shirt. Eyed him, said to the children, "Time for a bath, sweet girls."

"Don't worry about us," she said to David. "We're going to get settled." Kim got the girls started undressing and then took a circuit of the two rooms as she changed out the ammunition in her weapon, pulling all the windowshades and checking inside all the ear- and mouth-pieces of all the telephones before unplugging them. She checked on the children: half-undressed. She went and felt around and picked up the hanging art and the other decorative touches; they were device-free. All the screws on all the vents were painted over, but she ran a signals sensor over them nonetheless. The rooms were clean.

David closed his eyes and sank back, exhaustion and grief tugging at him. He was asleep when Kim looked in an hour later. She crept in, removed his shoes, turned off the lights, and went back to her own room, and the children. "How about some room service?" she asked them.

* * *

_Marie in his arms in that dinghy hotel room where she began showing him how good it could feel to be alive. Her face when she turned to find him in the doorway of her shop on Mykonos, so joyous. Marie, nursing the baby, singing her to sleep. Always fresh flowers on the table, a flea market paint-by-numbers on the wall. A pinch on the butt, a warm kiss, her laugh lighting up the room. Holding him so tight, skin bare against his bare skin, whispering in his ear, "My love…"_

"…_sooner or later, you remember something good."_

David sat up in bed to a pink and orange dawn. He was in a hotel in Hanover. It was the day of Marie's funeral.

He got up, padded over to squint through the door into the adjoining room. Kim, Indali, and Drächen were piled in the bed, asleep. He reached into his pockets, found Marie's medals in one and his dog tags in the other. He slid the tags off the ball chain and slipped them into an inner pocket of his pack, disposed of the necklace chains in the same way. Threaded the ball chain through St. Michael and Quan Yin, closed the loop and slipped it over his head. Went and checked out the new underwear. He could really use a shower.

* * *

(1)_Song of Myself, _by Walt Whitman

_(2)To You, _by Walt Whitman

_(3)Oh Me! Oh Life!, _by Walt Whitman


	20. Chapter 20

Dressed in their funeral clothes, they hardly recognized each other. Kim found an old lipstick in the bottom of her pack, and she self-consciously applied some at the bathroom mirror, two little girls her rapt audience. "You smell cleaner than usual," she commented to David. He just looked at her, one eyebrow giving a twitch.

Over breakfast, Drächen, Indali and Kim told David about their goodbye party at the orphanage.

"We have one more person to say goodbye to," David said to Drächen. "When we lose someone, the way we lost Mama, we say goodbye with a funeral."

"Mama's love goes on forever," said Drächen.

He nodded, looking at his child's face. So beautiful: tipped up toward his, guileless and trusting. Relying on him to do this right. "Her love never ends," he agreed. "We're not saying goodbye to her love. We're saying that now she lives in our hearts."

"_Blumen_?" Drächen asked, her blues eyes flashing.

"Yes, we can get some."

So, after breakfast, they made inquiries and went to a florist, not the closest one, but the largest one in Hanover. Drächen chose, and the designer created a florid arrangement of hot-colored tropical flowers, greenery, even tiny pineapples still on the branch. David actually beamed at the end result. Marie would have loved it. Drächen puffed up with pride, and Kim took digital pictures of her posing with it, alone and with Indali. It was taller than either little girl. No way would it fit in a cab. They left instructions for a rush delivery, and grabbed a taxi. They just had time to get to the church. David wanted to be there before Martin arrived.

Martin Kreutz climbed slowly out of his taxicab. He was unshaven, his eyes bloodshot, weary with bereavement. When he stepped into the church narthex, he saw David immediately and halted. The silence was immense.

"There's someone here you should meet," David said finally, indicating a doorway.

Eyeing him, uncertain, Martin slowly moved toward the door and through. They were in a small meeting room where a nun sat visiting with a young woman and two small children. Martin looked at David, wondering what this was all about.

"That's our daughter, Marie's and mine," David said, indicating Drächen. As carefully as he had said, _Why don't you sit down?_ to Martin just a short time ago.

"She's two. Her name is Marie Helena. Marie called her Drächen."

The floor had grown unsteady under Martin's feet. Except for her eyes, the little girl looked just like Marie's baby pictures. He gasped, tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes. "Drächen… Sounds like a name Marie would give a baby." A brief laugh escaped him.

Drächen ran to Kim, squealing with delight, and Kim scooped her up, kissed her.

"Who is that?" Martin asked, guarded again.

"Kim. She was taking care of Drächen in India when I went to find her after the Tsunami. She was stationed there with a relief group. That other little girl is Kim's daughter, Indali." David gave the information slowly, understanding that it could never adequately answer Martin's questions.

Martin nodded, as if it all made sense. Trying to maintain decorum, when there was no reason to it at all. Not to Marie's connection to this man, a man of secrets, of violence. Not to the existence of a two-year-old child, his sister's daughter, that he had never seen or heard of. Not to the presence of another woman, holding that child instead of Marie. Not to Marie dying, in the place of this terrorist. There was a roaring in his ears.

"What?" he asked David.

"Do you want to meet her?" David led Martin over to Drächen, said, _"Drächen, __dies ist Ihr Onkel Martin_." The child looked up at the man's frozen face and smiled. She offered him a vanilla biscuit, one of many that the nun had been pressing on her and Indali, and he accepted.

David indicated a chair, and Martin sat. A priest opened the door and looked in, and David went to speak with him.

Martin started eating the biscuit, delicately holding it between finger and thumb with pinky extended. He showed with elaborate rolling of eyes and patting of stomach just how delicious it was to him, and Drächen smiled in delight, came to lean on his knee. He spoke to her in German and she was even more delighted. Indali hung back, sank into Kim's lap.

Martin reached and lifted his niece to his knee, and her smile faded. He was hugging her. She didn't know him, his arms were too tight. Kim reached out a hand, and then Martin was crying, loud and uncontrollable sobs tearing their way out of him as he gripped the small child tightly. Drächen reached out for Kim, panicked. Indali added her voice to the fray, clinging on to Kim and starting to cry.

Kim got to her feet, one hand in Drächen's hands, saying calmly to Martin, "She doesn't know you. You're frightening her. Here, I'll take her." He was not letting go, the sobs still issuing forth. The nun was murmuring in German, alarmed.

Drächen was truly terrified now, struggling, eyes wild, crying, "Papa! Kim!" David strode away from the door, leaving the priest in mid-sentence.

"Let her go, now!" Kim said, heading into the lower and more insistent territory of her vocal range.

David ended it by putting his hand on the other man's arm, and jabbing his thumb assertively into the bundle of nerves terminating under his armpit. To the nun, it appeared that he was simply putting a steadying hand on the aggrieved brother's shoulder. Martin's grip loosened instantly and involuntarily, and Kim took the child out of his arms.

"Let's go out, Sweetcakes," Kim said, carrying the wailing child towards the door, Indali stumbling along behind, clinging to the skirt of her dress. Looking into Drächen's face, she whispered in the child's ear, "You didn't like that. His arms were too tight. It's going to be okay, Drächen." They exited, the priest closing the door behind them.

Martin was still sobbing, David stood nearby, stone-faced, ready to intervene again, as the nun murmured in Martin's ear. A second nun cracked the door, looked in from the hallway. _"__Das Begräbnis fängt jetzt an_."

Besides the nuns, Martin, and Cronin, they were the only mourners. The flowers added a unique touch to the sanctuary, befitting Marie's memory, David thought. Drächen grew restless mid-way through the liturgy, and Kim took her outside with Indali to eat more biscuits and chase pigeons. When the service ended, David looked around for Martin, saw his back receding up the aisle. He let him go.

Drächen was shrieking with delight as pigeons pecked cookie crumbs from her hands outside. Indali, laughing and breaking up biscuits to fuel the game. Martin paused next to Kim to watch.

"I'm so sorry for your loss," Kim told him.

Martin turned toward her, eyes watering. "You are going to go with him now? You want to be her mother?"

Kim broadcast nothing about her wants. "Marie was her mother."

Martin nodded. Of course she would say that. "I hope you have some good life insurance," he said, and went to hail a taxi.

David appeared on the sidewalk in front of the church about ten minutes after Martin departed. He watched, attentive, as Drächen showed him how she fed the pigeons, and then turned to Kim. "I need to ask you a favor."

She just looked at him.

"I want to stay with Marie until the cremation is complete."

Kim's took a step back. Nodded, looking up at the clouds, the church spire standing out in relief against them. She managed to keep her face composed. _General Order 5,_ she reminded herself, on both their accounts.

David took a breath, as if to say more, then glanced at Cronin—always lurking—and said nothing. He kissed and hugged both children. "Bye, Ladybug. Bye, Honeybee," he said, and went back into the church.

* * *

(1) The funeral is starting now.


	21. Chapter 21

"What are you doing, Kim?" Tom Cronin's tone was mild and his face was serious. They were in a cab, the children dozing, on their way back to their hotel.

"What do you mean?" she asked. _Not this. Not now._

"You four look suspiciously like a family to me." Concern colored his features.

Kim was silent.

"Kim. he is a black ops agent who has been suffering from severe psychological problems for several years. With your background you should know better than to get involved with someone like that."

Kim's mouth was set and her eyes were on fire. Her voice was quiet, to keep from waking the children, but it could not have been more forceful had she been screaming. "Severe psychological problems? You have a diagnosis? Let's see the file. The REAL file; the complete file. Let's see some documentation of where volunteering to serve his country in clandestine ops got that Marine!" She knew there had to be more than even Landy had. CIA always documented everything, down to the bathroom breaks. Obsessed with their transcripts, their photographs, their audio tapes, their videotapes…

Cronin leaned back, unable to tear his eyes away from her outraged face. He had worked with Kim nearly continuously over two years, and would call her emotional. There had been a few times when they were tracking Bourne in Berlin that he had thought she would pop right out of her skin. But he had never seen anything close to this level of ferocity before.

_Goddamned Marines._ A Navy man himself, he'd had plenty of experience with them. Clannish. Kim's relationship with Bourne was ample evidence of that, if nothing else. "Kim, you know that we can't—"

"Right. I do know." They were pulling up to the hotel. Kim opened the door, gathered up the girls and made her way through the lobby to the elevator bank, staggering under the load of slumbering humanity in her arms. Once in the compartment, she fumed, muttering. As furious with David—and herself, for feeling like a doormat—as she was with Cronin.

She wrangled the key card into the door, tripped over the bag of clean laundry left by the concierge just inside, and nearly fell, cursing loudly before she caught herself. The children woke, startled at first, then ready to play. They jumped up on the bed and started bouncing. Kim groaned inwardly, smiled outwardly, and got ready to perform for the rest of the afternoon.

It was hours later, past bedtime, when David returned. He let himself into his room, stopping just inside the door. He could see Kim stretched out next to the little ones in the adjoining room, still humming the lullaby that had sent the children to sleep.

_Schlaf, mm mmm mmm.  
Der Vater mmm mmmm.  
_

She looked over at him, a slight smile on her lips, the satisfaction of getting the children to sleep erasing some of the confusion of the day, of their situation. "That one truly never fails," she called to him, softly.

He nodded, took a breath. "I know. Marie used to sing that all the time… Sang it to Drächen the last time she saw her." He closed his eyes briefly, feeling the traction of his many losses. This time there was a balancing gratitude. That he and Drächen had Kim and Indali.

Kim sat up. "I know other lullabies, if you prefer not to hear that one," she said.

He shook his head. "The consistency is good for Drächen, right?" They had Kim to thank for that knowledge. He had a small urn in his hands, which he put in his pack. "I sent some of the ashes to Martin," he said, over his shoulder.

"I'm sure he'll appreciate that." Kim came to the doorway. He was checking the perimeter, sweeping with the electronics sensor. No telling who had been in here while they were gone.

Satisfied that their security had not been ruptured, David's final mission for the day was concluded. He looked more closely at Kim, noticed dark circles under her green-brown eyes, a fragility to her face. "This is a lot for you to go through, for us," he noted. He wanted to take the three steps across the room and fold her into his arms, but the look in her eyes, her shielded body language, made him pause.

She nodded again. _You don't know how much._ Too tired, too uncertain to tell him.

David removed his jacket and tie, throwing them on a chair. Untucked and unbuttoned his dress shirt, threw it on top of the jacket. Sat on the bed to take off his shoes and socks, began to knead his toes in the carpet. "Crappy shoes," he remarked.

"Hateful clothes," she agreed. She had ditched the terrible shoes and pantyhose before joining Indali and Drächen in jumping on the bed that afternoon, had gotten out of the black dress and into shorts and a t-shirt as soon as she could.

She saw the chain around his neck, the medals resting against the white of his t-shirt. Thought that maybe she would bring this day to a close. There was plenty of room in with the girls.

He saw her eyes linger on the chain, and his hand went to the medals, touching them briefly. "They're a reminder," he said.

She nodded, once. "Of Marie."

"Of who I need to be now. What I have to lean on," he replied, looking at her face. _She doesn't know I'm talking about her,_ he realized. _The merciful warrior_. Marie's benediction? He guessed he needed that, to feel okay about choosing to live over just staying alive. To feel okay about loving Kim. He noted a minuscule shift in her expression. Still, she was drifting toward the door to the other room. He wanted her to stay.

"Kim."

She stopped, looked at him, all her defenses surfacing. His face was a contrast to how she felt: as accessible as she had ever seen it, his brow creased slightly above wide, earnest eyes.He was leaning forward, elbows on his knees. "Thank you for coming with us, for bringing Indali. I don't know how we would get through this without you."

She nodded, gave a little shrug. Her face, usually so free, was still guarded. _Because of me,_ David thought.

David took a breath, eyes on hers. "I want you to know that what you said before, about living—I want to try. "

Kim felt her fear begin to recede. She searched his eyes, finding them clear, peaceful; alive. Her sore heart unclenched, and her feelings of tenderness for David flooded out to crowd her disquiet.

David wished he could erase every bit of the doubt from Kim's face, from her mind. Maybe, in time. "I wasn't ready before, when I left India." His eyes on hers, steady, as she shrank slightly, remembering. "I'm sorry for how that's hurt you. I am now. Ready."

He crossed the room, then, and took her in his arms, pulled her to sit on the bed. It felt so good to hold her cradled against his chest, her face nestled against his neck. She sighed a quick sigh, and he asked, "Are you scared?"

She nodded, and he told her, "Our fear will point us to our courage." His arms securely around her, his skin warming her face, he eased her back onto the pillows with him.

David kissed her closed eyes, breathed, "Beautiful Kim, look at me." He waited until she did, and then kissed her mouth, telling her, "I want to see you..."

With Kim in his arms and the children nearby, David Webb had everything he could imagine needing. The next day would bring more planning, more decisions, undoubtedly more travel. For this one night, it was enough just to be.

* * *

_Author's Note: That's it for this book, folks. Thank you so much for reading to the end. I get a thrill from every hit, and triple that for every review. I hope you've found something of value in this story, and been entertained. Drop me a line or post a review to let me know your thoughts.  
_

_If you want to know more about David's past, and his life as he tries to assume normalcy, put me on author alert; the next book will be posted as a separate story, under _The Bourne Progeniture, Book 3_..._ _Thanks again for reading._


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